How can that happen in America?

God does things in my life that are so outrageously extraordinary that it leaves no doubt who is behind it...

This past weekend tragedy struck a family in Kaduna, Nigeria. The Anglican Bishops son died while living in the UK of a virulent strain of meningitis that took his life in a matter of two days and I found myself connected to this deep sadness in the front seat of a Honda CRV while in a parking lot in Amesbury, MA.

I checked my email on my Blackberry during a break at the Anglican Awakening conference this past weekend. Hundreds had gathered to worship The Father and witness an historic event as the Primate of the Anglican Church of Kenya ordained priests and deacons to serve as missionaries here in America. There were black faces, yellow faces, brown faces, white faces....all shapes and sizes and many languages gathered in that Holy Space. We had come to gather in unity as Jesus commanded us to, for He wishes the church to be one.

...and He brought unity to Joyce, Martin and myself on the sidelines of the whole event. Martin is an evangelist from the Diocese of Kaduna and I asked if he knew of this man and the boy who had died. Indeed he was priested by the Bishop and spent years working with the son, watching his children grow up in the church...."oh man, oh man" was all he could say...."there will be great mourning"...we began to pray, asking for the mercy of God to descend upon fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, wives, children, uncles, aunts, nephews, nieces, cousins, friends...

and when we had finished Martin lifted his head and looked at me..."how could this happen in England?"...."Martin" I said "nowhere is safe from the effects of the fall of man and the brokenness of the world" and I proceeded to tell him of my sons death....and he had that look that he understood for the first time...color, geographic location, nor money can build a wall to keep pain and death away...

he lost his vision of the Industrialized Nation as the Eden....

....it's time the church did too. I was hit by this article on Yahoo news this morning...

"Some 691,000 children went hungry in America sometime in 2007, while close to one in eight Americans struggled to feed themselves adequately even before this year's sharp economic downtown, the Agriculture Department reported Monday.

The department's annual report on food security showed that during 2007 the number of children who suffered a substantial disruption in the amount of food they typically eat was more than 50 percent above the 430,000 in 2006 and the largest figure since 716,000 in 1998.
Overall, the 36.2 million adults and children who struggled with hunger during the year was up slightly from 35.5 million in 2006.

That was 12.2 percent of Americans who didn't have the money or assistance to get enough food to maintain active, healthy lives.

The government says these people suffered a substantial disruption in their food supply at some point and classifies them as having "very low food security." Until the government rewrote its definitions two years ago, this group was described as having "food insecurity with hunger."

The church has forgotten what Providence means...oh, that doesn't happen in America.
It has, it does, it is....and God is asking what will you do? Now, I understand that God places these things in front of me in a powerful way, and he has asked me to step out like He has few others....I mean, here were two people who lived many miles from their homes in a parking lot connected by the sacrifice of Jesus...and tragedy

At New Hope we've started to work with Angel Food Ministries to help our neighbors not suffer...and we're easing the strain on our own food bills as well!

Yes, it happens in America...but even in the midst of all the "it's" that happen, thanks be to God that we have the grace of God to endure through the mercy and love of Jesus...
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