Home  Newsletters Molly Molly's January 2008 newsletter
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Molly's January 2008 newsletter |
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Dear Friends,
HARD TIMES IS FINALLY OPEN!!! Now that I that out of my system, let me tell you in all seriousness that God is doing good things on the West Bank. It gets harder by the day to imagine leaving for nearly three months, but it gives me the opportunity to practice trust and to remember that it is God who accomplishes his work in people, not me.
I want to share with you this month about a practical issue the Jesus Kitchen team finds ourselves facing quite frequently these days. In Matthew 5:40-42, Jesus says, “And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.” This is quite a challenge! What do we do with this, in a day where people are asking for money right and left? It occurs to me that Jesus also lived in a time where people made a living by asking for gifts, at times dishonestly. He was not unfamiliar with the situation in which we find ourselves, and this is the council he gives.
A few weeks ago, a young man ran out of gas across the street from the Jesus Kitchen. We saw quickly that he had reached the end of his rope. He has just picked his disabled brother up from the hospital and was on his way to pick up his wife from work. He had been pushing his car without hat or mittens in below-zero wind chills, and when we approached him, he broke down crying. Of course, we gave him a hat and mittens, drove him to a gas station, and made sure his tank was full. We sent him on his way with prayers, hot food, and cider. By the time he left, he was beaming.
That night, I had a long conversation with someone who has been scammed enough times that he has grown cynical and no longer wants to enter into the potential suffering of other people. I shared the verse above and said that part of living like Jesus is being willing to be taken advantage of. I felt like I was listening to words I had not planned to say as I told him, “God also gives good gifts to people who misuse them and take advantage of his kindness. If I am going to love like he does, I need to be willing to sacrifice even for someone who will misuse my gift.” How true that is.
But how far does that go? What if giving to someone is only helping them hurt themselves? Jesus says to love others—and, in fact, the verse above is in the context of teaching about loving people. Is it loving to assist someone in self-destruction? To be honest, I do not always know. I present the question for you to pray about yourselves, while I myself am praying that God would transform me to love like he does, even to the point of being willing to knowingly be taken advantage of, and also give me wisdom to know when meeting a person’s request would not truly be loving.
I feel like God is testing me and teaching me in this area simultaneously. The week after the gentleman ran out of gas and I talked with the other man about being willing to give to people without being cynical, we had more people ask us for money than ever before. Another person ran out of gas across the street from us. We had only a few team members at the Kitchen at that point, so I said that we could help once more of our people showed up. They sat waiting in their car for about fifteen minutes and then drove away. Hm. It was tempting to assume that the man from the week before was actually scamming us as well and spread the word about the sucker Christians who would fill up your gas tank! Later that night, a drunk man telling an obviously fabricated story came asking for money. I felt, for some reason, that I should give it to him. It turned out that doing so gave me the opportunity to speak to him, pray with him, and call him to repent of his destructive lifestyle. I believe I did enable him to become more inebriated that night, but I also believe that I sent him away with something truly valuable that I would not have been able to give without becoming like a fool by giving money to someone so clearly lying. I cannot stop him from destroying himself, but I can offer him true life. So I have concluded that we cannot have a formula to apply in these circumstances. We must ask for God’s heart so that he can show us the best way we can represent him to specific people in specific moments. I hope to inspire you to join me in praying about this issue… as well as for the prayer requests on the reverse. Happy New Year!
Do not be afraid, but let your hands be strong!
Molly S. Waggoner
Prayer requests:
- The breast lump I mentioned last month is still present. By the time you read this, I will have had my doctor’s appointment to determine the next course of action; my guess is that the doctor will recommend removing it. Please still pray that it goes away, and that if it doesn’t, the issue can be resolved quickly and easily.
- I have had further intense discussions with “Jim,” the man I wrote about last month, and he wants to continue discussing faith. I believe God is doing deep work in him, so pray that God would bring him to a place of repentance and surrender, and that his life be transformed into a powerful witness for Christ on the West Bank.
- Speaking of powerful witnesses, a dear friend from the West Bank recently gave her life to Jesus! I hope to tell you more of her story in the future, but for now, please pray that the enemy would not be able to steal the work God is doing in her, that she would find healing of deep wounds, and that she would become a testament to God’s gifts of grace and new life!
- I leave for New Zealand on February 24 and will return on May 13. I hope to continue sending newsletters while I am there, but can make no guarantees! A few prayer requests concerning my trip:
- I still need further support for expenses while I am in New Zealand (which will become more critical if I have surgery, which will not be cheap even with my insurance). Please pray for provision.
- Pray that the relationships at Hard Times that have grown so significantly over the last few months would not shrivel, but that they would in fact deepen during my time away.
- Pray that the Jesus Kitchen would thrive while I am away, and that God would clearly show me how to handle the leadership of that ministry while I am away.
- Finally, I want to offer praise to God for some amazing things he has done. Recently, I have found myself developing significant friendships with non-Christians outside of the West Bank. While this is not part of my “official ministry,” I believe God is giving me the opportunity—sometimes in strange and surprising ways—to be a light to people who may not experience him otherwise. I thank him for this. I also recently went over the Jesus Kitchen prayer list, which I started at the end of April last year, and counted the number of people we had interacted with. In just over eight months, we had 170 different people on our prayer list! Moreover, I am sure there were many more with whom we had such fleeting interactions that we did not list them. What a blessing to have the opportunity to represent Jesus to so many people who may not have encountered his love elsewhere—simply because we happened to be on the same sidewalk at the same time. So praise God for that opportunity, and pray that his word would not come back void in any of their lives!
Thank you!
MSW
 Part of the crowd waiting to enter. I’m in the upper right in the green scarf… red-faced from two hours of the Jesus Kitchen!
 Finally! The doors open! All agreed that though 4 ½ months was too long, it was worth the wait!
 Too excited to be serious… Clayton and me on opening night! (I’m still in my snowsuit and coat from the Jesus Kitchen!)
 After the first night of non-stop business! A good sign… though note the final item.
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