Love, Ministry

Lack of transportation is an obstacle many homeless people face in rural areas without public buses as well as in big cities designed for cars. Without a bicycle or a friend with a vehicle, the homeless are stranded, sometimes unable to pick up prescriptions, go to food pantries, or hold down a job.

Enter Roberta Harmon, a street minister recognizable by her white heart-shaped glasses and fiery red hair who fixes up old bicycles for homeless people who need them to get to jobs. Harmon has given out roughly 1,000 bikes. She has also worked with volunteer mechanics for eight years—scavenging rummage sales and garbage bins on bulk pickup days and building bikes with salvaged parts. The police department also donates lost or unclaimed bicycles it recovers to her.

Harmon said, “We realized that people could get a ride to the interview but then once they got the job, the rides dried up. So how were they supposed to keep their jobs?”

She learned her mechanic skills on YouTube and from growing up poor; in a pinch, she will substitute lip balm for grease, and nest a small tire inside a larger one with screws in it for do-it-yourself snow tires. Her latest project: refurbishing trashed lawn mowers in hopes of starting a landscaping company that can employ people who are unhoused.

“I don’t want to help you stay in a pit,” said Harmon, who adds that many anti-poverty organizations aren’t effective.

The 150th anniversary of Canadian missionary George Leslie Mackay’s arrival in Taiwan was celebrated in 2022. Perhaps the country’s most beloved 19th-century Westerner, churches have reenacted his arrival, and several books are being published about the missionary. The Taiwan government even has a bio of him on their website. So, what made this foreigner worthy of this level of affection more than 100 years after his death?

In 1872, the Canadian Presbyterian missionary arrived in northern Taiwan (then called Formosa). Over the next 29 years, Mackay planted more than 60 churches and baptized more than 3,000 people. He started a college and a graduate school of theology. Mackay Memorial Hospital, named in his honor, is now a large downtown hospital in Taipei.

He also provided medical treatment. He and his students would sing a hymn to patients, extract their teeth, and then preach the gospel to them. Over the years, Mackay became known for having pulled thousands of teeth.

He insisted on identifying with Taiwan and the Taiwanese. Mackay spent more than half of the 57 years of his life on the island. Upon his arrival in Taiwan, he immediately began learning the language from the local boys herding water buffalo. Unlike most Western missionaries, he married a local woman, and they had three children. Embracing Taiwan as his adopted homeland, he touched the hearts of many Taiwanese and contributed to the conversion of many to Christianity.

Before he passed, Mackay captured his love for the country by writing a still widely beloved poem: “How dear is Formosa to my heart! On that island the best of my years have been spent. A lifetime of joy is centered here … My heart’s ties to Taiwan cannot be severed! To that island I devote my life.”

In his latest book, In Search of the Common Good, Jake Meador writes:

Love also must be faithful because when we love we do not simply will the person’s good a single time and then stop. We see this in marriage and parenting, of course, but friendship should be faithful as well. In the aftermath of my father’s injury, one of the qualities we most appreciated in many of my parents’ friends was their fidelity. One woman from the church is still mowing their yard once a week over three years after Dad’s injury. We could depend on them not simply on the day of the injury but a month later, a year later, three years later.

Author Jake Meador writes:

Love also must be faithful because when we love we do not simply will the person’s good a single time and then stop. We see this in marriage and parenting, of course, but friendship should be faithful as well. In the aftermath of my father’s injury, one of the qualities we most appreciated in many of my parents’ friends was their fidelity. One woman from the church is still mowing their yard once a week over three years after Dad’s injury. We could depend on them not simply on the day of the injury but a month later, a year later, three years later.

Two of Jesus’ most famous teachings are “Love your neighbor as yourself” and “Greater love has no man than this, that he should lay down his life for his friends.” With these and numerous other biblical teachings, what should be the Christian’s essential attitude toward the challenging situations brought on by the coronavirus pandemic?

Here is a brief historical overview of Christian’s response to pandemics:

As all historians attest, Europe’s first hospitals were built by the early Christians “to provide care during times of plague, on the understanding that negligence that spread disease further was, in fact, murder.”

The Antonine Plague of the 2nd century may have killed off 25% of the Roman Empire. Christians cared for the victims and “offered a spiritual model whereby plagues were not the work of angry and capricious deities but the product of a broken Creation in revolt against a loving God.”

During another plague in the 4rd Century, the pagan Roman Emperor Julian complained about “the Galileans” taking care of people who did not agree with their beliefs. Church historian Pontianus wrote that Christians ensured that “good was done to all men, not merely to the household of faith.”

Religious demographer and sociologist Rodney Stark states that there is a lot of evidence to suggest that in cities with Christian communities, the death rates due to plagues may have been half that of other cities.

When the bubonic plague reached Wittenberg, Germany in 1527, Martin Luther did not flee the city like many did, but stayed to minister to his fellow citizens. His daughter Elizabeth soon died from the disease. In a tract entitled “Whether Christians Should Flee the Plague,” Luther wrote: “We die at our posts. Christian doctors cannot abandon their hospitals. Christian governors cannot flee their districts. Christian pastors cannot abandon their congregations. The plague does not dissolve our duties: It turns them to crosses, on which we must be prepared to die.”

In the days leading up to 9-11, fighting in Afghanistan between local groups and then the Taliban resulted in thousands of refugees pouring down into neighboring Peshawar, Pakistan. There they were squashed into tents and mud hovels in refugee camps in intense heat and poor sanitation. J. Dudley Woodberry and his wife Roberta were working in the refugee camps at the time. Woodbury describes what happened in the camps:

Conditions at one camp were harsher than at the others; so Roberta and her class took school supplies to the students so they had more than just blank slates with chalk. Another group of eight workers imported thousands of sandals for the children who ran around with bare feet on the rough parched ground. But they decided that they would also wash their feet as Jesus had. My daughter-in-law joined the group.

For a week they washed every foot with antibacterial soap, anointed with oil, and silently prayed for the child. Then they gave each of them new sandals, a quilt, and a shawl, plus a small bag of flour for every family. At first the sores, pus, pink eye, and dirt were revolting. But then our daughter-in-law felt a deep love as she silently prayed, “Dear Father, this little girl looks like she does not have anyone to care for her. Let my touch feel to her as if you are touching her. May she remember how you touched her this day, and may she seek after you hereafter. Thank you for those who seek you will find you." Many children looked up and shyly smiled.

Sometime later a teacher in one of the tents used for a refugee school asked her class, “Who are the best Muslims?" A girl raised her hand and replied, “the kafirs" (a term meaning unbelievers that is often used by Muslims for Christians). After the teacher recovered from her shock, she asked, "Why?" The young girl replied, "The Muslim fighters killed my father, but the kafirs washed my feet.”

When Johnny Jennings of Ringgold, Georgia was 18, he made a life-changing visit to a Georgia Baptist children's home. Several children ran up to him and asked to be adopted. "That took my heart, right there," he says. While Jennings wasn't ready to adopt, he promised to do everything he could to help the home's young residents. A few decades later Jennings found a practical way to raise funds for the home—recycling. For the past 32 years Jennings, 86-years-old as of March 2017, has sold 810,063 pounds of paper, $20,275 worth of pennies, and countless pounds of recycled aluminum products. Over the years, he's given $400,000 to the home.

One of his friends told reporters, "Johnny normally loads his truck by himself, and that is a job in itself, and did I mention he is 86 years old and had two small strokes just two weeks ago?" But that didn't stop him from getting back to his paper route. When Jennings' got home from the hospital, he went right back to work. The friend continued, "That is just how he is, and he will not stop until the undertaker turns his toes up, that is what he tells everyone."

Jennings son said, "My dad doesn't see the $400,000. He sees the faces of those kids."

In 2001, Diane Granito founded the Heart Gallery, a unique program that uses photography to help find homes for older foster children, sibling groups, and other children who are traditionally difficult to place with families. A prominent art gallery in Santa Fe, New Mexico, donated space where more than a thousand people came opening night. The photos on exhibit were the end result of the photographers' attempts to coax out the unique personalities in hundreds of children—a great contrast to the typical photos attached to a child's file. "They look like mug shots," said one of the photographers of the typical case photos. "This is an opportunity to just portray them as kids in their environments," said another involved. "We're treating this as a living, breathing project."

Since its inception, the Santa Fe project has inspired 120 more Heart Galleries across the United States. In some places, the adoption rate after an exhibit is more than double the nationwide rate of adoption from foster care. Such photography earns a description worthy of its roots: photography in Greek means "to write in light."

Those who work to find foster children adoptive families are used to rubbing up against the public perception that most foster children have serious emotional and behavioral problems. Sometimes, though not always, it is an accurate perception. And a picture offered in a different light does not change the child it portrays. But an image of a troubled child at play does offer the accurate light of hope.

Possible Preaching Angles: God the Father adopted us as his children when we stood in the worst of all possible lights. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. That is to say, as Christ died for the sins of the world, he held dear even the pictures of us at our worst. But now God the Father views us in the light of Christ himself.

Ernie Johnson Jr. is at the top of his game as a sportscaster for Turner Sports and CBS Sports—the lead TV voice for Major League Baseball (TBS), the host of Inside the NBA (TNT), and a contributor to the NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Tournament (Turner and CBS). He is also a faithful Christian and a father who has adopted children, one of whom has special needs, a boy named Michael.

When Cheryl, Ernie's wife, was introduced to then three-year-old Michael, he had a club foot and was unable to speak. When she called home to share her experience, and said she would wonder what had happened to the boy for the rest of her life, Ernie told his wife to "bring him home."

Later, Michael was diagnosed with muscular dystrophy, and now at 26 he is attached to a ventilator and uses a wheelchair. Yet though his care has been both extensive and expensive, Ernie and Cheryl Johnson have not shrunk from the challenges or resisted new ones. Ernie says:

Some people can be driven by going on mission trips, digging wells for kids who don't have water. Everybody's wired differently. This is one of the ways we're wired. We have this heart for adoption. It's rooted in our faith, our Christian faith. We're instructed to care for orphans and widows. We don't want credit. We don't want pats on the back. We're getting a heck of a lot more out of it than they are.

Jean Vanier, a Christian leader who founded L'Arche communities around the world for persons with severe disabilities, tells a story about a 76-year-old woman named Francoise, also known as "mamie." Francoise had serious mental and physical disabilities. She was blind, bedridden, and incontinent. She could not feed or dress herself. She was unable to communicate through words. And yet the entire staff of this L'Arche community followed the words of Scripture and showed Christlike love for "mamie."

But showing unconditional love wasn't always easy. One of the staff assistants, a young man called "Louis," was assigned to take care of mamie. Louis was disappointed because he did not feel drawn to her. Faithfully, as he was asked, he fed mamie, but he found it tiresome. Then one day, she placed her hand on his hand and smiled. It was, he said, a special meeting, a moment of transformation, a moment of grace. From that moment on, he loved being with her. What he had found tiresome and difficult became a blessing. Love had made all the difference.

Then one day a woman came to visit the director of that same L'Arche community. As the visitor watched mamie struggle through life—weak, blind, voiceless, powerless to feed or dress herself—she offhandedly asked the director, "What's the point of keeping Francoise alive?" The director looked at the visitor and said, "Well, madam, because I love her."

What is love? How do you define it? For years, popular musicians have attempted to answer those questions. According to Neil Genzlinger, there are over 10,000 songs on file at the U.S. Copyright Office in Washington, D.C., that begin with the words "Love Is …" Here are some of these song titles from the 20th century that try to define love:

"Love Is Like a Dizziness" (1905)

"Love Is Like a Shoogy Shoo" (1912)

"Love Is a Sickness Full of Woes" (1912)

"Love Is a Babe" (1919)

"Love Is an I.O.U." (1925)

"Love Is Like the Influenza" (1927)

"Love Is Good for Anything That Ails You" (1936)

"Love Is a Dimpling Doodle Bug" (1943)

"Love Is a Traitor" (1944)

"Love Is Doggone Mean" (1947)

"Love Is Your Prescription" (1947)

"Love Is Atomic" (1950)

"Love Is a Glass of Champagne" (1952)

"Love Is on the Ten-Yard Line" (1953)

"Love Is a Bore" (1964)

"Love Is Hell in a Small Hotel" (1966)

"Love Is Psychedelic" (1968)

"Love Is Groovy" (1969)

"Love Is Not One Color, Child" (1970)

"Love Is a Heavy Number" (1973)

"Love Is a Four-Letter Word" (1975)

"Love Is a Five-Letter Word" (1975)

"Love Is a Funky Thing" (1976)

"Love Is Suicide" (1979)

"Love Is a Loaded Gun" (1988)

"Love Is for Suckers" (1988)

"Love Is Blindness" (1991)

“Love is a Battlefield” (1983)

“Love is a Losing Game” (2007)

“Love is Love is Love is” (20016)

“Love is Gone” (2024)

In Western Colorado there is a road called the Million Dollar Highway. My guess is that both tourists and even most of the people who live on the western slope don't know how this road got its name.

They probably assume it got its name because it was expensive to build. That's not correct—although it probably was expensive to build because it runs through very difficult terrain and at a high altitude. The real reason it's called the Million Dollar Highway is because waste material from the ore in gold mines was used as the bed for that highway, and not all the gold dust and nuggets were removed by the mining processes available at the time. As a result, there is a partial roadbed of gold that is probably worth a lot more than a million dollars.

It isn't the cost that gave it its name, but rather what is inside it.

The same is true for the royal law of love ("Love your neighbor as yourself"). Sure it's costly, but what gives it the name is what it is made of: it is made up of God, the God who is love."

Perfect love may cast out fear, but fear is remarkably potent in casting out love.

—P. D. James, English author (1920- )

Carre Otis was among the world's top super models for 17 years, beginning her career at the age of 14. To prepare for each photo shoot, she routinely binged and purged, took laxatives and diet pills, and exercised intensely. Being extremely thin made possible a modeling career that earned her $20,000 a day. Cocaine helped her to diet, and she used heroine later on in her career. She married actor Mickey Rourke, but they soon divorced. This destructive lifestyle led to a mental and emotional breakdown.

After treatment at a mental institution, she emerged committed to changing her life. She began eating normally and abstaining from all drugs and alcohol. She gained 30 pounds, went from a size 2 to a size 12, and is now successful as a "plus size" model.

Last year, on her 32nd birthday, a friend invited her on a humanitarian mission to distribute clothes and toys to kids living in orphanages in Nepal. For the first time she saw what starvation really was. Looking back on her experience, she explained to reporter Cynthia McFadden:

It wasn't about somebody being concerned that they were going to fit into a size, and that's why they weren't eating. It was because there wasn't food to be had. There was no money to get food. . ..I thought, You know what? This is how the rest of the world lives.

If somebody asked me, "When did you feel the most beautiful?" I would say, when I was traveling through the Himalayas in dirty clothes, dirty hair, hadn't had a shower in a week, and was giving kids clothes. That's when I felt like the most beautiful woman, and the woman I've always aspired to be.

How do I want to be remembered? Not primarily as a Christian scholar, but rather as a loving person. This can be the goal of every individual.

A Christian is a loving letter. Love is basic to being Christian. If we love not, we are not. This is not sentimentality or effusive feelings, but good old basic love that reaches out to heal the hurt of the world. Love's simplicity is its attraction; its transforming power is its glory. Love is practical, yet transcendent; earthly, yet heavenly. Love is the essence of the divine Author and permeates the whole of life.