Change: It's Your Turn

For the last five days, I've told you about some causes that are near and dear to my hear. But, honestly, that's n not what change is all about. Yes, it's fun to talk about other people doing cool things to change the world. But, that is not it. That's not where it ends. It's your turn now.

Yesterday in Sunday School, I was teaching the kids about the story of Baby Moses. About how this big, evil king decided to kill all the little boy Israelite babies. And how this made one mommy and one sister very sad. So, Moses's Mom and Miriam took the baby boy and placed him in a basket. They trusted God to take care of things, and they thought big. When the Pharaoh's Daughter came across this cute baby boy floating in the reeds, Miriam came out of hiding and God did great big things that day. The bottom line for our lesson yesterday was to use your imagination to think big. We talked about different problems in the world. After we got through the recession and the president being problems (hey-I live in Alabama), we got onto what I really meant. Things like clean water. Things like the famine in Somalia and starving kids. Things like little girls being sold into marriage to old men. And you know what? They got it.

Even though I was talking to fourth and fifth graders, they got it. They understood the problems with these problems and wanted to do something to fix it. So, I put them in groups and had them use their imagination to think big about finding a solution to a problem. One group came up with the idea of doing a cookie sale to raise money to build churches in Africa so that people could learn about Jesus. Another group came up with the idea to tell people about Free Rice and to collect canned food and send it to Africa. Another group also talked about collecting food at our church's Fall Festival. So, I had them all get together and come up with a master plan. Now, they are excited about making posters in two weeks to hang up and tell people about our collection. While we aren't going to mail the food to Africa, we are going to collect food for our church's food pantry to give to the community.

Here's the thing. As I said yesterday, you are never too small, too young, or too insignificant to make a difference. Find a cause and support it. Advocate for it. Pray for it. If you can't find something for what you're looking for, start your own. Change the way you look at missions and make it personal.