Safety Instruction Card

Most of us have flown on a plane. Just after they shut the doors and start to pull away from the gate, you are asked to watch the flight attendants and are asked to get your safety instruction card out of the seat back in front of you. The flight attendants go over where the exits are, how to buckle and unbuckle your seat belt, what to do in case of emergency, how to get oxygen, and how to use your seat as a floatation device among other things. While this is going on, very few people are listening. Most people are reading the paper, looking out the window, reading another book, or simply not paying attention. Maybe if it is your first flight you might listen. The interesting thing is that they are giving you the information you need to save your life. It is the most important information you could know while on the trip and people don’t pay attention.
Presenting the gospel of Christ is very similar. We are telling people the most important information in their life and ultimately what will save it and people are not paying attention. They are too busy finding something else to do. Maybe they have never heard it and so they pay attention the first time, but after that they think they have already heard it all. And who really takes that safety card out and reads it anyway? How do we respond when we have the keys to a better life and people just don’t listen?
This last week we have had a team of 14 Americans working with us, or really we have been working with them. Each morning we go to the streets. This is actually the most we have been engrossed with the street boys because it is with the same ones every day. Previously, we would be at a different slum or program every day. Now we see the same boys. Each day we see the same problems. We spend our day breaking up fights, fights because they don’t know how to communicate or how to forgive, so we try to teach them. Every day we see boys who are high and hardly able to move. We take away their rags soaked with fuel that they sniff to get high. They kick and scream and yell at us. We try to tell them part of the reason they are sick is because they do this to themselves. We explain that it is doing them harm. The next day, we are stealing the rag again. We see boys with cuts all over their bodies. Some of the cuts are new and some are old. Some of the cuts are on the surface and some are deep and infected. Quickly, each day, they come over to the medical station to get help and attention. I hear Katie and the others who are helping give them instructions for each wound. Don’t pull this off, wash this with soap and water, wear your shoes, or don’t pick at this or it won’t heal. Sometimes we have to get the infection out and it hurts. We try to explain that it is necessary for them to heal, but we still have to hold them during the kicking and screaming. The next day they come back with no bandage, dirty wounds, carrying their shoes, laughing that we are frustrated, and wanting more help. Needless to say, it gets frustrating.
It is a constant fight between what we are trying to teach them and the life they know. Each day when you see one of them come stumbling in smelling horrible or sitting off to the side smoking weed, the desire is to feel defeated and want to give up. However, there is a stronger desire in each of us to love. When we quickly run over to grab their hands and tell them to put the rocks down they have picked up to throw, it is not anger at them but anger at their choices. When we scold them for stealing or biting and make them sit down or tell them they can’t have food if they do it again, it isn’t because we are mad. It is simply because we love them and want them to learn. As I was sharing with an uncle this week about discipline I said, “When I see a kid do something wrong, I don’t let them get away with it. I must discipline them somehow. I want them to learn from their mistake because I love them. If I don’t do anything to correct their behavior then I don’t care enough about them or I don’t love them enough.”
There are many times the boys look at us with tears and angry faces and yell, “Why?” There are many times we try to correct the wrongs with tears in our eyes asking them “Why?” The pain comes from both ends. Each day we find ourselves in prayer for guidance and for their lives to change. We want to see victory and yet this week we have made 4 trips to the hospital for all sorts of things from overdoses to HIV infection to broken arms. It seems as if defeat is all we see.
Then there is me. I go through this cycle every day. I try hard to help those who won’t listen to the voice of reason, accept help from someone who love them, and change to live a better life. However, I realize I am describing myself. My life is full of this same story. Each day God is trying to love me and so many times I push Him away. He has bandaged my wounds, given me clothes to wear, and extended His love to me. Yet I come back with the bandages torn off, wounds infected, shivering in the cold, and running to love something else. Through it all, I scream, “Why?” Sometimes I find myself suffering from the choices I have made, and wallowing around in the punishment that comes from those choices. Other times I find myself simply wrapped up in the arms of love that are always ready for me to run to. I can’t imagine how frustrated God must feel sometimes. I can’t imagine the hurt He feels when we do what will hurt us.
I think about Revelation 3:17-20, “You say, “I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.” But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind, and naked. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see.
Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest, and repent. Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with them, and he with me.
I am no different. So many times I have traded the robes of God for the rags of my life. I have heard the words of Christ said to me over and over and yet I don’t always listen. However, just like the boys I do know where to go for the help. Even if I don’t do what I am supposed to do, I still know where to go to be loved. We thank God after days for bringing the worst cases to us to receive the help even if we are frustrated. I thank God for the patience to wait for the boys and love them, AND I thank God for having the patience to love me in my wretched, pitiful, poor, blind, and naked state. Today, I will choose to open the door when I hear God knocking and I will choose2B changed. I will pull out the card from the seat in front of me and read it so I will know how my life can be saved. I thank God for the chance to learn from my friends on the streets and see myself in them.