LOVE, HOPE, COUAGE - Reach Ministries of Tacoma

"HE IS ALMOST TWELVE.
LOVES SOCCER...AND PIZZA.
WANTS TO BE A BIOLOGIST...IF HE LIVES LONG ENOUGH.

HE IS POSITIVE!

"SHE JUST GOT HER BRACES OFF.
HAS HAD THREE CRUSHES...SO FAR THIS YEAR.
IS ALREADY THINKING ABOUT COLLEGE...
IF SHE MAKES IT.

SHE IS POSITIVE!

Reach Ministries of Tacoma is the focus of our services this week at Calvary. REACH is an organization that doesn't just undestand the stigma, pain, fear and dispair that assaults a child, who, through no fault of their own, have contracted HIV/AIDS, it seeks to do something about it.

Providing opportunities to experience life as children and to show the unquenchable, unconditional love of God, REACH touches the life to these children and their families through advocacy, mentoring, camps and high school programs.

The worldwide pandemic of HIV/AIDS is not, in contrast to common misperception, exclusive to homosexuals, intravenous drug users or people in Africa. It is a reality that affects many - often innocent children and youth. The effects of the disease and its associated life-threatening illnesses are made worse by the isolation, loneliness, fear and stigma they experience.


REACH seeks to network and mobilize medical professionals, individuals, and groups to donate their time and resources to serve those in need in the name of Jesus.

One day, when Jesus was just beginning his public ministry, a man with leproosy came along and begged him, "Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean." (Luke 5:12ff) Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. You have to understand, leprosy was the first century equivalent of HIV/AIDS in many ways. Lepers were considered unclean. People feared and ostracized them, fearing they too might contract the disease by touch or association. Lepers, it was believed, were being punished for sin. For Jesus to reach out in love, compassion, grace and power to touch and cleanse the leper was radical. No conditions. No prerequisites. No judgment. No stigma.

HIV/AIDS victims are similarly ostracized, judged and feared. Yet so many have been stricken with this disease through no fault or act of their own. An infected partner or parent, a contaminated transfusion needle, or some other cause has left children in modern day leper camps as orphans or victims.

REACH offers the touch of Jesus. REACH offers Christians the opportunity to be the tangible, visible expression of Christ's love. Or, as Mother Teresa once said, "to be a small pencil in the hand of God writing a love letter to the world."

Last fall, I had the chance to stand surrounded by over 100 children in a small village outside Lusaka Zambia. Dirty hands and faces reached out to touch and to be touched. Over half these children were either single (one parent) or double (both parent) orphans due to HIV/AIDS. No doubt, some of them were infected as well. My heart was broken to see how starved for love and for touch these kids were.

The reality is that we don't need to go overseas in order to positively (pardon the pun) affect the life of a child who is, in some way, a victim of HIV/AIDS. There are opportunities for that love, that compassion, that grace to be shown here in our own backyard.

James says, "religion that God finds acceptable and pur is this: to look after the orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." REACH MINISTRIES is practicing religion that is pure and acceptable to God. We can partner with them by showing the love, hope and courage that comes from knowing and following Christ.

Looking back at Christmas

We were in a fabulous Christmas spirit. We had just heard an incredible concert by the Seattle Symphony and performers from Cirque du Soleil. The holiday concert in the Seattle Pops series is always our favorite. Afterward, we walked a few blocks to the main downtown shopping area of Seattle. The twinkling white lights sparkled in the crisp air. Regal horses drawing white “handsome cabs” decorated in green boughs and red ribbon added to the ambience. Street musicians sang and played a mixture of music and school choirs performed Christmas Carols on stage at one of the indoor malls. Children giggled with glee on the Merry-go-Round. It wasn’t cold enough to snow, but there was a crisp chill in the air that heightened our sense that this was indeed the Christmas Season. It is an multi-sensory, almost magical time we enjoy every year. We walked around the same blocks and browsed through the same stores looking at the same displays and merchandise that is available every year.

But there was something different about this annual tradition for us. This year, we both commented that the most notable difference was our lack of tension and impatience. We weren’t concerned about long lines or pushy people. We weren’t frantically trying to make last-minute decisions about one more gift to fill a stocking. You see this year, we were free from all that. We had, along with a large number of others in our congregation, decided that we were going to celebrate Christmas in a different way. Instead of excessive spending on over-priced items that would be returned or wear out shortly after purchased, we had committed to redirecting the majority of what we normally spend on Christmas gifts to purchase something that would truly make a difference in the lives of people we had never met.

Each year, the members of our church – Calvary Presbyterian Church in Enumclaw, Washington – participate in a project where people buy hand-made Christmas cards crafted by people from the church. For each card purchased at $5.00 apiece, a wool blanket is purchased by Church World Service to send to some crisis area in the world: places where hurricanes have wreaked havoc or wars have sent refugees fleeing, or earthquakes have left people homeless and cold.

This year, in addition to the Christmas card project, we decided to participate in a growing movement known as ADVENT CONSPIRACY. The originators of this movement decided a few years ago to encourage their congregations to change the way they celebrated Advent and Christmas by purchasing safe water for people in far flung places like Kenya, Central America or Asia. Over 1.2 billion people lack safe drinking water. A child dies every fifteen seconds from disease that could be prevented by the availability of uncontaminated water.

As with any new program, our staff and our Elders weren’t sure how this project would be received by our people. Would it conflict with our Christmas Card/Blanket project? Would it be asking too much of people in this period of uncertainty in the economy? Was it too “Scrooge-like” to ask people not to spend as much on Christmas presents as they normally had? With some trepidation, we forged ahead with the coordinated materials of ADVENT CONSPIRACY. Our weekly sermons followed the themes suggested by the program: Worship fully; spend less; give more; and love all. Even several of our small groups read the book and discussed what it would mean to restore the idea of sacrificial giving to Christmas. But how would we raise the money to meet our goal?

In October a group had just returned from Zambia where they had helped a community drill a bore hole for a well. But we didn’t have enough money to finish off the project with a pump and storage tank. People were already aware of the need in this poor community just to the north of Lusaka. We have sponsored community-based schools there and have sent two mission teams over the past two years. It seemed like a given. So we set that as our first priority and we committed $1,500.00 to make further headway.

Our Elders had set an initial goal of $4,000.00 for our first year doing this project and prayerfully wondered if we could do it. We adopted a second project in Kenya. Numerous organizations are doing good work in bringing water to the world but we chose Food for the Hungry. My son-in-law worked for Food for the Hungry. That seemed like a natural place to begin. He put me in touch with other staff at FH who suggested a “guttering” system in Marsibit, Kenya.

It didn’t seem very glamorous but it fit our estimated budget. For $3,200 USD we could provide a simple but effective system of rain water collection and filtering that would provide safe water for people in the community throughout the dry season. It was just what we were looking for. But how could we capture the interest and participation of our people?

We found numerous helpful materials. An organization called the H20 Project sent us wrist bracelets and little cards. The cards suggested that by giving up things like sodas, bottled water, espresso drinks or other beverages, that people drink water only for two weeks and give the money saved from that change to the water project. The wrist-bands were daily, visible reminders of those commitments. The first weekend of our emphasis, I put $20.00 in, representing the money I would save by not drinking expensive robust coffee from my favorite, large, Seattle based coffee purveyor (not to mention any names).

We also placed large 5 gallon water jugs (empty) around in different places throughout the church. These would be our collection containers - visible reminders of how readily we can have not just safe water but distilled bottled water. Since the bottles were clear, we could watch the progress of the fund each week. It was so much fun to watch kids of all ages bring plastic zip-lok bags of change and pour it into the barrel. The first couple of weeks, those coins would hit the hard plastic bottom of the barrel and make a loud, reverberating “kerplunk.” Adults would bring rolls of bills – ones, fives, tens, even hundreds – and force them down through the narrow opening at the top of the barrels. People who visited the office, located in another building on our campus, could make a contribution there as well.

We soon began to realize that we had set our sights to low. We wouldn’t know for sure until we cut the barrels open and counted the money, but everyone could see that the fund was growing; welling up like a fresh spring of water and coming close to overflowing. With eager anticipation, we waited until after our Christmas Eve services to count the money. When we finally did extract it all from our collection barrels, we were amazed to discover that over $8,400.00 had been raised. And that was in addition to our Card/blanket project, our annual Deacon’s offering, and people’s regular gifts.

A comment heard often was “This was so meaningful. It truly made my Christmas meaningful.” Another was “Will we do this again next year?” I don’t think there is a doubt about it. What kind of gift could better represent the sacrificial gift of God’s Son, whose birth we celebrate each Christmas? Not an ugly tie or a pair of socks or an “executive desk organizer.” This same Jesus said, “Whoever believes in me will never thirst but in him, springs of living water will well up to eternal life.” What a joy it has been to give water in His name. Christmas will never be the same.