Who's that at the Window?

Sept.19,2011

I am lying on my bed in the guesthouse of Angela Head, in Pucallpa, Peru. Thunder has rumbled and threatened a coming storm for the last three days. Early this morning, heavy clouds filled with millions of tons of vapor could hold back no longer and so jungle trees are bent from the deluge as huge rain drops beat the tin roof.

On the outside of my window, the cute black and white face of a Pichico monkey, looks at me as if to say…”Hey…there is a storm out here…can ya help a monkey out”? Even a monkey realizes that there is a barrier between his wet world and my dry comfortable one. The look on his face and his agitated nervous movements on the outside, looking in, reminds me of something very important. This is the same relationship that the global church has with the most needy people on the face of this planet.

Much of the world must look at us, so called Christians, as we sit in comfort and relative ease and ignore the fact that many of them are nervously looking into our windows and wondering…”Hey…we are starving, emotionally, physically, spiritually, with no hope of help from the coming storm…can ya help a brother out?"

Only 5 % of churches worldwide are involved in missions. There are 1000 churches for every unreached people group…and we still have not finished the task. Why not? Consider the following.

Worldwide, believers spend 17 billion on average in missions a year, while some 45 billion dollars was spent last year on pets alone. Of the 253,000 missionaries world wide…only 24,000 are working to reach the unreached. That breaks down to 1 missionary for every 11,250 individuals. That means that for a stadium full of 70,000 fans waiting to get a hotdog and a coke, that there would only be about 6.5 people trying to serve everyone in the whole stadium.

How long would the fans stay happy in the stadium, if they had to wait to get a hot dog and a coke…not just for hours or days or months or years or decades? They may never get served. It’s obvious we care more about taking care of pets,going to the easy to reach places, and enjoying our own comforts, than we do about reaching those who have not had a chance to hear yet with the Gospel message.

I am just thinking out loud…can’t help it when a monkey is staring right at me!

Wick Jackson