YOU MADE A DIFFERENCE...

Saturday, November 14, 2009 Africa Harvest of Hope held their first "Food Packaging Event"...

I ran across this quote by Gerhard E. Frost and it seemed appropriate to start with it;

" "The reason mountain climbers are tied together is to keep the sane ones from going home."
I don't know who said it... but with a mountain of mercy behind me and a mountain of mission ahead, I need you, my sister, my brother, I need to be tied to you and you need me, too... to keep from bolting, fleeing in panic, and returning to the "sanity" of unbelief.
Wise words, whoever wrote them..."

With our mountain of mercy behind us and a week of catching up on things we've let pile up while in the midst of our panic, we can't quit thinking about all the faces that came through the Yucaipa Community Center to scoop, fill, weigh and seal the little bags of food we will be sending to Tanzania. 50,000 meals to be exact and we could not have done this if the 350 to 400 volunteers had not been there throughout the day.

Synergy: the working together of two or more people, especially when the result is greater than the sum of their individual effects or capabilities.

I wondered what each volunteer could have done that Saturday, had they not come to help package food. Could they have made a difference in 50,000 lives? Could we have packaged 50,000 meals without their help? Would there be 50,000 meals heading to a people group in Africa who will not only appreciate these rice meals, there will be some who will actually stay alive because they received them. We don't think about this kind of thing very often.

Have you ever picked up a 3 pound weight with only one finger? It's not that easy, but if you use all five fingers you can lift 35 or 40 pounds. That's synergy. That's working together. We are not accustomed to working together these days. In earlier times people came together to help each other out. What might normally take a man a month or so to build a barn, would only take a weekend with the help of people in his community.

Last Saturday we experienced something close to having a 'Barn Raising" experience and we want to thank every one of you who helped. You made a difference in so many lives. Not just ours and not just the children who will receive the food, but in each others lives as well. You stood shoulder to shoulder with people you didn't know. You fed children you will never meet and you blessed our lives in a way that will forever change us. In a time when it's hard to find 'good', together you made 'good' take place.

Re-read the quote again; Frost writes, "We are tied together...to keep (each other) from returning to the "sanity" of unbelief."
We were tied together with an invisible rope that gave us the strength to be insane and believe we could do something like this.

However, it would be foolish for us to think that even together we could have made this happen without God being in the middle of it. We all saw His faithfulness and we still feel an awe of what was accomplished because He tied us together that day.

I can't think of a better picture of synergy than a "body". Romans 12:4-6 says, "For as we have many members in one body, but all the members do not have the same function, so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another. Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, let us use them..."

God bless you!