Twenty Years of Making Beauty, Sharing Truth and Doing Good

Next week, Foundation For His Ministry’s Home For Needy Children in Oaxaca, Mexico, will celebrate twenty years of existence. Twenty years of helping the poorest of the poor. Two decades of making disciples, of meeting the physical, emotional and educational needs of children who have been abandoned, abused and neglected. Casa Hogar (as it is called in Spanish) has been following God’s call and God’s example of making beauty, sharing truth and doing good.

Twenty years ago this 14 acre plot of land in the Tlacolula Valley was nothing but a half finished building and a lot of big thorn bushes. Now it is a place of beauty, with many gardens and wonderful architecture.

Twenty years ago leaders of Foundation For His Ministry began sharing truth with people of the region. The indigenous people like the Zapotecs, Mixes, Mixtecs, as well as native Mexicans heard the Good News that God loves them and wants them to be happy; that Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life; that through Jesus they can have peace with God and live an abundant, eternal life. Oaxacans from pre-school age to old age heard the truth about life and death; good and bad; heaven and hell. Pastors and missionaries went into area prisons and remote mountain villages preaching hope, restoration and renewal to those who felt hopeless, helpless and lost. Children from the Home learned and continue to be taught the truth of God and his Word in morning devotions, Sunday School, church services and youth conferences. They learn the truth of God’s World in our primary school called Oasis. They also hear and apply truths at special events like swim camps and at mountain retreats.

Twenty years ago, missionaries from FFHM came to Oaxaca with a vision of doing good. A vision of feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, healing the sick and taking in the stranger. For two decades servants of Christ have been cooperating with God, FFHM, local and regional authorities to make a difference in the Kingdom of God and Oaxaca’s seven regions. Doing good by meeting felt needs, and more importantly, meeting the deep spiritual needs of people in southern Mexico who are walking in darkness. FFHM has been bringing the Light of Life to thousands of lost souls for these last twenty years, and, God willing, for the next 20 years and more.

Sometimes I wonder if people read accounts like this and think that we must be some sort of Super Hero Christian Saints. We are not super hero Christian saints. We are just ordinary people doing ordinary things following an extraordinary God as best we can. God has opened our eyes to certain needs and we clumsily walk along the path that God has put before us to travel. We are sinners who have been forgiven. We are beggars who have found some bread and share with other beggars. We do the best we can to love God with all our being and love our neighbors as ourselves, and we fail mightily everyday. We hope to find God’s strength in our weakness. We pray for grace in our times of need, which are often. We could all easily pray the prayer of Saint Thomas A Kempis in his classic book The Imitation of Christ –

O God,

Deal with us according to your loving-kindness,

not according to our wickedness and iniquity.

We offer unto you all our goodness,

though it is exceedingly little and imperfect,

that you may mend and sanctify it,

that you may make it well pleasing and acceptable in your sight,

and ever draw it on towards perfection;

and furthermore bring us safely,

slothful and useless poor creatures that we are,

to a happy and blessed end.

May we feel ourselves assisted by your grace, enriched by consolation,

protected from dangers, freed from pains;

and that being delivered from all evils

we may joyfully give you exceeding thanks.

Pardon our sins and mutual offenses.

Take away, O Lord, from our hearts all suspicion,

indignation, anger, and contention,

and whatsoever is able to injure charity and diminish brotherly love.

Give grace to the needy,

and make us such that we may be worthy to enjoy your grace,

and go forward to the life eternal.

Amen.