Gratitude

Rev. Kimberly Burke

Today, I am honored to feature the last in a series of four guest posts from Rev. Kimberly Burke in which she relates her experiences as a missionary in Uganda, Africa under the umbrella of Tree of Life Ministries. Rev. Burke serves First United Methodist Church in Boerne, Texas as Associate Pastor. I am honored to also call her my friend.


Click on the appropriate link to read Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3.

In Christ There is No East or West

In Christ there is no East or West,

In Him no South or North;

But one great fellowship of love

Throughout the whole wide earth.

In Him shall true hearts everywhere

Their high communion find;

His service is the golden cord,

Close binding humankind.

Join hands, then, members of the faith,

Whatever your race may be!

Who serves my Father as His child

Is surely kin to me.

In Christ now meet both East and West,

In Him meet North and South;

All Christly souls are one in Him

Throughout the whole wide earth.

John Oxenham 1908

Finally, there is a sense and practice of gratitude and thanksgiving in the East that I have not encountered before. My sisters and brothers in Africa seem to view everything as a great gift in which they give God the glory.  They truly understand that everything they have comes from God.  I witnessed gratitude and honor to God for things that I daily take for granted.  A potato for the day, an unexpected gift, a visit from a friend, a well in a community that brings fresh water, a child given the opportunity to go to school, a pair of shoes, a mosquito net, seeds for planting, a song for singing, a vitamin, the ability to teach and learn, a bible, a church to worship in, friendship and community.  I wonder what you hope for, what you depend on and what you are grateful for.  I wonder how you express that.  I wonder when you have felt so overcome with joy that you set your feet to dancing.

I wanted to cling to the Eastern way of living a Christian life.  I felt like it would slip away if I left this place, returning to my complacency.  Some might ask, don’t you appreciate all that is so plentiful in the West? I certainly do.  Don’t you think there is enough suffering and poverty here to tend to? Yes I do.  I have read thousands of statistics over the years about poverty, death, infant mortality in the third world.  But I must admit I had a deep sense of shame for all the waste in my own life.  I still don’t understand why some live in a mud hut and some live in a mansion with rooms they never use.  Why some starve while others throw away food? Why one country has so much and another so little.  I think God would ask us the same questions.  I no longer have statistics and national geographic images in my head, because I have spied with my little eye.  In the Gospel of John, Andrew and (Cephas) Peter followed Jesus.  Jesus turned to them and asked, “What are you looking for? “ They said, “Where are you staying?”  Jesus said, “Come and See.” (John 1:37-39) I for one learned more about living a true life of grace, dependence, joy, faith and love in the two weeks I spent on the red planet than I have experienced in my entire lifetime.  I pray that I can hold on to it. I pray that I can truly live it.  I pray that I will not forget that we are one planet in various stages of healing.  I am grateful to my sisters in Uganda for being such great missionaries to me.


Special note: Several of our readers have expressed an interest in donating to this ministry or sponsoring a child. To find out more please visit Tree of Life Ministries here

Dependence

Rev. Kimberly Burke

I am once again honored to feature a guest post by  Rev. Kimberly Burke, Associate Pastor of First United Methodist Church in Boerne, Texas. Rev. Burke resides in Boerne with her husband Danny and son Jordan. This post is Part 3 of her impressions of her experience as a missionary to Uganda, participating with the Tree of Life Ministries. See Part 1 and Part 2.

There are a few observations that I made in relation to our two planets; the planets of the East and West.  The first is how the two come to view hope.  In a world that from a western perspective seems devoid of hope.  Hope abounds!   Hope is alive! Hope is all there is.  I realized how often we cast our burdens yet so readily pick them back up, roll around in them and make them part of our being.  They are like ghosts that follow us around year after year stealing our joy and happiness. They whisper lies…you’re not good enough, you’re weak, you’re less than.  The faith that my Eastern sisters have isone of necessity, it is day to day-moment by moment-breath by breath faith.  In the West we often lack this kind of faith because we are driven back to the belief that we can fix our situations that we are the creators of our lives.  We believe our doubts and doubt our faith.  In 2 Corinthians 12:9, Jesus tells us, “My grace is enough for you: for where there is weakness, my power is shown the more completely.”  For those of us in the West with a plethora of distractions, quick fixes, and self-reliance we lack what the East has at its disposal…trust.  Hope draws its power from a deep trust in God; one that has been tested over time and one that has not come up lacking.  The West is a culture of instant gratification and we have often learned to trust in the things of this world to fill us up other than God; relationships, food, sex, money, success, alcoholism, materialism, consumerism, workaholism…and any other “ism” you can think of.  When we reach for something other than God we lose the one thing that directly relates to joy and faith and that is dependence on God and God alone.  I’m not saying that addictions do not occur in the East, they do, but people do not have the means to rely on purchasing their reliance as consistently as in the West.  The women I met only have God and each other.   It is the same reality that led the psalmist to proclaim, “I have no hope except in you.” (Psalm 25:5)

Total dependence for our every need humbles the heart and it is particularly difficult for the Western world for there is an abundance of resources to depend on and it creates in us a false sense of independence which limits our relationship with God and with each other.  The women I met actively expected God to be present with them and they had eyes to see and ears to hear which were not drowned out by the world.  Simply put a life without total dependence is a hopeless end but with Christ in all things it is an endless hope. 

To read the final post in this series, please go here.


Special note: Several of our readers have expressed an interest in donating to this ministry or sponsoring a child. To find out more please visit Tree of Life Ministries here.

Joy, Joy, Joy

Rev. Kimberly Burke

I am once again honored to feature a guest post by  Rev. Kimberly Burke, Associate Pastor of First United Methodist Church in Boerne, Texas. Rev. Burke is a recent honors graduate of  Southern Methodist University/Perkins School of Theology, where she received her Masters Degree. This post is Part 2 of her impressions of her experience as a missionary to Uganda, participating with the Tree of Life Ministries.  Click here to read Part 1 of this four part series. Part 3 is here.

I was overwhelmed the day of my first visit with the women’s ministry.  I was greeted with singing and dancing, clapping and praising God.  I had never experienced such raw joy, such unabashed gratitude.  I began thinking these women had no problems.  So in an attempt to get to know them, actually in an attempt to get over my nervousness of not knowing how to express such joy, I asked if they had prayer requests.  It now seems like such a typical Methodist thing to do.  But in the very back of the room a hand shot up and a beautiful glowing woman stood up and said please pray that I might be empowered to spread the gospel and the wisdom to do so.  In that moment God’s words came flowing back to me…there are women there who want to spread the gospel.  I was so thankful that perhaps I did have a reason for being here at this time and at this place and with tears streaming down my face I asked her to come forward and all 26 women gathered around. Those who could reach her laid hands on her and everyone another gathered in a grand spirit filled circle.  I prayed with a power that was not my own, for God to anoint and consecrate this woman to service, to give her courage and wisdom, guidance and authority and the tears began to stream down her face as this white woman from the other planet with no real power other than to say the words she had longed to hear by the power of the Holy Spirit, flowed over her.  And one by one their hands waved in the air to be prayed over and I realized in the midst of all of the joy I had just witnessed there was such suffering as I had never witnessed in one place.  Women who had babies die in their arms, husbands addicted to alcohol (demons they called them), women who had lost husbands, one woman whose Muslim family had abandoned her because she was a born again Christian.  Yet 17 women came forward to profess their yearning to spread the good news of Jesus Christ and to be anointed. To go forth on bare feet, down dirt roads, to places where the gospel has never been heard, facing danger of persecution and isolation.  After confessing all of these horrible tragedies, many of which I realized could be cured by simple, ordinary things like clean water, antibiotics…simple ordinary things.  These women yet again leaped to their feet to praise God! To sing praises, to dance and to laugh together.  Their worries were seemingly carried away like a wisp of smoke from the very real conclusion that in the midst of it all God was there. They laid their burdens down and refused to pick them back up for tomorrow there would be more.  This moment was fresh with joy.

I wonder if you have ever experienced this kind of joy. What was the catalyst?  Can you imagine how perspectives could be changed if we actively looked for reasons to be joyful? 


(Go here to read Part 3.....) 




Linking to Jen at Finding Heaven Today