June 3, 1998
“Lord Jesus, we are silly sheep who have dared to stand before you and try to bribe you with our preposterous portfolios. Suddenly we have come to our senses. We are sorry and ask you to forgive us. Give us the grace to admit we are ragamuffins, to embrace our brokeness, to celebrate your mercy no matter what we may do. Dear Jesus, gift us to stop grandstanding and trying to get attention, to do the truth quietly without display, to let the dishonesties in our lives fade away, to accept our limitations, to cling to the gospel of grace, and to delight in your love. Amen.” -Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffing Gospel
More and more I am amazed by the lavish grace and love of our Father. More and more I am humbled as I am reminded there is nothing I am able to do to earn His grace.
The work Phileena and I feel called to, serving the poor, sometimes becomes a “platform” for my spirituality. I sometimes feel like what I do gives me more “leverage” with God- that maybe He'll hear my prayers or extend more grace to me because of all the sacrifices I've made for the poor. But I am always reminded that there is nothing I can do to earn His grace, His love, or His mercy. It's always there. Even despite my arrogance and pride, He still extends His grace to me.
The late Henri Nouwen often wrote and spoke about the lies which distract us from celebrating our brokeness and weaknesses before the Lord. The lies that tell us “I am what I have”, “I am what I do”, and “I am what other people say about me”. These are powerful distractions that often disillusion us in our efforts to walk humbly with our Lord.
My prayer is that I would no longer stand on my accomplishments or achievements for the Kingdom and that I would not fall under the slavery of the lies that take my focus off of God's grace and love for me, but that God would allow me to celebrate my weaknesses and shortcomings as areas where He is able to live and love through me.
Please pray with me that I would be able to learn to live in the truth of His grace and receive His mercy as an empowering and guiding force in my life. It's sometimes the “simplest” truths that I struggle the most with.
Well, a lot has happened since you last heard from us. We were in England the first week of May participating in a conference for leaders of organizations that work among “children at risk”. The conference was attended by 150 delegates from more than 90 organizations that work with more than 2 million “children at risk” in more than 200 nations around the world. Both Phileena and I were
encouraged to be among like-minded people who have experienced the same struggles and heart-aches as we have. It was an extremely fruitful and productive time and we look forward to potentially serving the poor in partnership with some of those we met at the conference. Thank your for your prayers as we participated, the Lord really was present among all who were there.
The week after we returned from England we had our spring Word Made Flesh board of directors meetings. It was a momentous time for the Word Made Flesh community as we welcomed Dr. John Charalambakis and Dr. Phyllis Kilbourn onto our board of directors. We also had a time of commissioning for Jared Landreth who will be leaving for Nepal in July and for Walter and Adriana Forcatto who will be leaving for Peru in September.
Now we are preparing for our big trip back to India. Phileena and I leave on June 10 and will be gone through August 10. I've enclosed our summer itinerary so you can know where we will be and how to pray for us. There will be a lot for us to do and so we really could use your prayers. Pray that God would give us the strength and energy to meet all the demands that will be placed on us.
The Word Made Flesh India office will sort of be our travel “hub” as we come and go from there to Nepal, Calcutta, and Sri Lanka. If you would like to send us mail, that address is: Word Made Flesh/ 16 Temple Rd./ Jawahar Nagar/ Madras-Chennai 600 082/ INDIA. We would love to hear from you if you have time to write.
I will look forward to giving you a good report on all our summer activities when we get back in August. Until then please keep us in your prayers.
Take it slow, keep it simple, and bless God.
Servants among the least,
Chris & Phileena Heuertz