Love Gets Dirty

What does love look like in Pemba, Mozambique? Well, for the team of 10 who just returned from Pemba on April 23rd, love took on many different facets at Iris Ministries during our two week trip.

Love looked like.....feeding 1,500 children and pastors after church on Sunday afternoon, evangelizing and praying for the sick in the bush, hugging and kissing the Iris kids, tucking the little ones into bed at night, treating the kids for scabies, buying bananas for the kids, teaching in the Pastors' Bible School, dancing with the children during church, playing tickle games with the kids, teaching children's church, praying for the widows coming for their weekly supply of beans and rice, playing in the dirt with the children, worship and prayer with two Iris teenagers, bringing hundreds of pounds of donated clothes and toys with us to Iris, and encouraging the MIA missionaries, as well as other Iris missionaries by praying over them and washing their tired, "dirty" feet. This is what love looks like. This is how we became the aroma of Christ in a lost and dying world. It was a privilege to see God move in the hearts of this MIA team as they became the aroma of Christ in Pemba.

These are some questions I've asked myself during my times in Mozambique. Do I really love? Am I truly following Jesus' example of love? Jesus' ministry was simply about love. There is so much beauty in simplicity. Love is so simple, yet we try to complicate it because we can't understand just how simple it really is. Jesus came to earth because of the Father's love for us. Jesus came to love and out of this love flowed miracles, signs, and wonders. In His ministry we see a pattern. He always went to the least of them...the poor, the widow, the orphan, and the marginalized. He went to the people and places that were "unclean".

Jesus got dirty....ministry will be dirty! If I love prostitutes and drug addicts, I will get dirty. If I love the homeless and the hungry, I will get dirty. I think I've been too clean. Every time I go to Mozamique, Holy Spirit tells me I have been too clean, but I want to get dirty! Several months back I bought a John Deere T-shirt that I absolutely love. It says, "Play in the Dirt". That is my mission field theme. Let's play in the dirt with Jesus and love people into the Kingdom!