Scattered Thoughts on Myanmar

Today at about 7:15, the same time that my students wander in my room each day, one of my students arrived with a particular issue on his mind. One that I was more than happy to discuss and dedicate our morning to, because I too, can't seem to push it out of my head. After the morning announcments Joel pipes up with, "Maestra, which is worse, a cyclone or an earthquake?" It is amazing to me how broad his worldview is, concerning he has never left the Houston city limits, and getting on the highway is a rare and exciting occasion. He spends more time thinking about poverty, hunger, and injustice throughout the world more than many of the adults I know that call themselves Christians and claim to live their life by the Bible....the book which leaves no mystery as to our Christian duty to love, serve, pray for, and bear the burdens of people in situations such as these.

Pride is such a disgusting thing. It has been horrible to watch how the pride of the junta's leaders has manifested itself in absolutely ignorant decisions. Decisions resulting in thousands upon thousands of innocent people dying, people that could have possibly survived. The hope rests in the truth that the God that we serve is bigger than all of the red tape, and the restrictions, and shut doors. There are Christian workers that have been in Myanmar working long before the cyclone hit. There are also Christian workers in the surrounding countries that are being allowed in, such as India, Indonesia, Thailand etc. Please pray for them. Pray for God's favor to surround them, for supernatural strength as they work in what I can only imagine would be a very, very, overwhelming environment. Pray for the people of Myanmar...for the children that are now orphans, for the mothers and fathers mourning the loss of their children, and for the people that have been waiting over 2 weeks now for anything that they can put in their mouths, be it food or a glass of water that would provide nutrition to their feeble bodies.

A couple of weeks ago in church we talked about a holy impatience. How normally, humans are impatient in the wrong areas of life, things coming or going that we demand right now. Things that we just HAVE to have. The pastor proposed that we pray that God would give us a holy impatience for things like justice, an intolerance for sin, for the millions upon millions of people that have not heard the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I pray that He would instill in us a holy impatience concerning the crisis in Myanmar. God has not forgotten them....neither should we.

"I know that the Lord maintains the cause of the afflicted, and executes justice for the needy..." Psalm 140:12