Burdens

My heart is burdened with many things. I hope these burdens are continually expressed in my prayers to God, and continue to be motivation factors for pressing on in the work here. I hope these burdens may be felt by others of you who are concerned with Cordoba, Argentina.

My heart is burdened

for the hundreds of thousands of university students in this city.  They are the future of Argentina, and many are like sheep without a shepard.  I long for the day when good, solid, Biblical churches are full of college students in Cordoba.  I constantly see the things of this world pulling the hearts of students away from following Christ.  Just the other day I saw the news of this billboard in downtown, aimed at young women looking for something to study.  The billboard is an advertizement for a new university program, the school offers young women degrees in how to be a pornography actor, call girl, etc. 
This burdens my heart:  the fact that this can be done legally here, and the fact that there is so much of that industry thriving in a tough economic environment.

My heart is burdened

for my friend from the USA that I had dinner with last night.  I knew he was having some problems, and on the way to church last night Me and Sofia saw him walking rather depressed and alone on the sidewalk.  We invited him to dinner after the church University meeting, and the man is truly full of many tough problems and issues, the biggest one being that he has recently separated from his wife, and has moved into a small apartment by himself. 

My heart is burdened

for 2 friends of mine, who are both struggling between faith in God and a homosexual lifestyle.  I cannot imagine the inward struggles they must have and often feel hopeless in knowing how to best council these young men.

My heart is burdened

for the family that I live with.  They are 2 university aged men, along with their mother.  Their father passed away suddenly not long ago.  The mother had a stroke and is pretty much limited to life at home.  These and many other family, financial, and future concerns has placed a lot of emotions bottled up inside them, which at times manifests itself in disputes and bits of anger.  Not long ago I had a nice chat with the 2 boys until almost 4 in the morning about God, religion, etc.  I have seen one of the boys reading his Bible more, and I hope to continue to point them towards Christ.

My heart is burdened

by the difficulty here to do the work of evangelism.  It really does seem like a tough place, and I am a concrete, goal-oriented person who likes to see results, so I can get frustrated at times.  One of the things that has been in my mind lately is how many young people have pretty much forsaken the Catholic church, yet at the same time many view the “evangelical” churches here as being just plain crazy and weird.  The evangelical churches have gotten a bad rap based on many preachers being exposed on hoarding money from their congregation, from the many other sects such as mormonism, jehova’s witnesses, etc., and from just plain post-modern thinking.  This burdens me.  One of the things we are doing at my church here, Centro Crecer, is trying to bridge the gap between the church and the community.  We hope to do a variety of activities that are healthy for the community.  The result we are praying for is that as we do these events, we can invite people to church, and also for the church to be known in the community, and not just known, but known to be a church that is eager to improve things in the community.  We have allready done 2 “mobile youth center” activities in the local plaza.  I wrote on this before, but it is basically a fun, safe place for kids in the community to hang out and have a good time playing sports, video games, skating, or playing music.  Another event that I am working on and have written about is a local fun-run. It is not until October 24th, but I really want it to be a great event, both from a runner’s perspective and also for the church, so there are lots of details to be taken care of. The entry fee will be 20 Argentine pesos, which is normal for a fun run here, and the idea is for this money to go towards the Children’s home that I have been involved with, as they are in need of a van to take kids to school and other activities. If the up-front costs involved with organizing the fun run are paid for, then all of the money that comes in from the entry fees will go straight towards the Children’s home.

What is your heart burdened for? Are you turning your burdens over to the One who takes care of all burdens?

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