All you need is love...

Love. It's easy, right? Falling in love, being in love, loving friends and family. It's natural... right?

As we are about to fly out this evening, I have been thinking a lot about love. Over the last few months, I have really felt God nudging my heart to love people. I mean, really LOVE them. When I originally felt this "call," I thought that I finally had some calling that I could hold on to. In my mind, loving was easy. I will be the first to admit that I am not the most loving person in the world, but I have the ability to love deeply and care for those around me.
As I jumped aboard this commandment of God's (remember "love thy neighbor"?), I forgot for just a moment that none of my calls are ever easy. That realization came crashing down around me almost immediately and God called me to love the very people I would find most difficult to love. In a matter of days I was asked to love a sleeping infant, a classroom full of 9-year-old boys, and a gentleman imprisoned for child pornography. A few days later, I was offered the opportunity to love a drug addict, a cheating man, and a woman in an abusive relationship. Those I am closest to pushed me away, and those who have previously pushed me away came seeking advice. I have been asked to love broken hearts, broken bodies, and broken spirits.

Love is the hardest choice I have ever had to make.

Loving people can be incredibly painful, incredibly frustrating, and incredibly selfless. However, this is not why love is so hard. For me, love is hard because it is a choice you have to make everyday with every person through every circumstance. Love is our deepest call-- to love God and one another... and it is in the midst of prisons and drugs and abuse and brokenness that we are asked to love the deepest. This is where Christ lives and loves.
As our team ventures into poverty and illness, we will be asked to love the orphaned, the widowed, the diseased, and the broken. Unfortunately, this will likely be easier for us than to love those we live with, those we live next door to, those we work with, those who have wronged us, and those who have broken our hearts.
We ask that you pray for us and with us as we head to Kenya, but I would also challenge you to share in our mission of love. You dont have to join our team in Africa to serve others. You dont have to go into the extreme poverty of a nation to show love. You, my friends, are called to look into the poverty and brokenness and illness of your own lives and serve one another. Over the next ten days, I ask that you pray for us, but also that God reveals to you who you are called to love... and then I pray that you are pushed to choose love, too.
We all love you and are looking forward to sharing the stories of Africa's orphans with you in the coming days and weeks. We are also looking forward to hearing your stories of love when we come back.

Blessings,
Amanda