True Religion
In this issue of Dispatches, I’m excited to share an article from an FMI Field Team member about the kind of Gospel work that follows our Savior by giving not only our time or our resources, but our very selves—because “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” Her reflections are both challenging and encouraging, and I trust they will serve you as they have served me.
Ben Ebner
It’s been a decade and a half. It might sound cynical, but I know what to expect when I walk into an orphanage here: drastic developmental delays, aimless behaviors, lifeless eyes, unpleasant smells… and sitting—always sitting or wandering, kept alive but not really living—the image of God pathetically shriveled and withered.
So, when my family first began partnering with a local children’s home three years ago, I knew what was coming.
And I couldn’t have been more wrong.
Walking in the front door, we were enthusiastically greeted by a smiling 26-year-old man in a wheelchair. This man, who was born with limited use of his legs, arms, and hands due to cerebral palsy, grew up at the children’s home. He led us directly into a small, tidy office and workroom, walls covered in small jars of coffee beans, coffee grinders, and equipment for labeling and packaging his products. This workroom is where he spends his days, overseeing a coffee business that bears his name and logo. He has been loved, trained, and developed for years. He has been trusted with responsibility. He now trains and develops others. He dreams of operating his business independently one day.
As we exited the coffee business, we walked across the hall to a small shop where children in the home can purchase snacks, supplies, and gifts. At the desk sat a woman who also grew up in the home and has a developmental disorder that limits her mental capacity. She cheerfully waved at us and rose to greet and shake our hands, then quickly returned to her work of stocking shelves and managing her detailed financial records. While she’s proud of her work in the shop, she also serves a critical role in managing some of the home’s laundry and caring for the younger children.
A few steps further down the hall we were pulled aside by a beaming teenage girl in a wheelchair who, in spite of her cerebral palsy, was wrapping up her intense studies for the day. She is learning three languages, writing essays, and learning to play the piano, with the one finger which she can effectively control.
Down the hall to the left, the teenager’s piano teacher sits in a room filled with secondhand instruments. She is just a little older than her student, and although legally blind, she plays and teaches piano, guitar, and an ancient instrument of her local culture. Along with many others, she participates in the home’s micro businesses, activities like canning strawberry jam and making Korean kimchi for sale.
We hadn’t reached the end of the hall before a young boy dashed up to inform us that “mama” wanted to talk with us. At the end of the hall stood his mama–everyone’s mama–a small Korean woman in her sixties whose entire face was lit by a warm smile. Her clothing was simple and local, but she moved in and out of the children and their needs with the dignity and confidence of a queen.
In a former life, Kim was a stockbroker in one of the biggest financial centers of Asia. Her life was full of adventure, from a visit to Everest base camp to travel all over the world. But, as she began to understand the Good News of Jesus’ perfect provision for her soul, it led to a new compassion for others, spilling over in abundant financial generosity. However, over the course of time, Kim became convinced that disabled orphans didn't need her money; they needed a mom. They didn’t need more of her stuff; they needed her self. So, twenty years ago she left her job, moved a couple thousand miles away to a tiny town in another country, and started this creatively empowering home where orphans can experience the love of Jesus.
“Kim became convinced that disabled orphans didn’t need her money; they needed a mom. They didn’t need more of her stuff; they needed her self.”
This children’s home isn't an institutionalized orphanage; it is a real home for kids who have been discarded, a home where Kim is a mom to each of them in every sense of the word. It isn't a place for disabled children to simply be fed and clothed; it is a place where the disabled and limited are grown and enabled to the point that they feed and clothe others. This home isn’t a place where outsiders come and feel good as they do work for the “disadvantaged.” It is a place where these children are taught that they are advantaged. They are endowed by their Creator with honor and capacity to take dominion of His world in some way and they are trained and entrusted with meaningful work suited to their abilities.
Later, I sat across from Kim as she introduced a local businesswoman to her model. The woman interrupted shortly into the conversation, asking if she could donate a new and updated coffee grinder. It would be much more efficient and professional, allowing the home to turn a bigger profit and work more efficiently, a quick solution to enhance the business. Kim smiled gently. If anyone understands business principles, she certainly does. But, as she explained, the main product of her business is people, not coffee. Efficient production of coffee was not the goal. They intentionally engaged the children with lower mental capacity, the ones who could not work higher functioning jobs, to grind by hand, dressing up daily in their crisp uniforms, using their strength and skills to produce a product that can bless others. Yes, a machine can replace a day’s work in minutes, and that sounds gleefully productive, but it will efficiently strip the entire process of its purpose—equipping these young adults in all their limitations to bless the world and to know they are blessing it. She believes that the work itself, not just the product, glorifies their Creator.
There’s no heroism in Kim, no feeding of an inner need to rack up an impressive list of ministry accomplishments. Kim simply sees clearly. Kim sees her kids, not as objects of pity, but as divine image bearers. She acts toward them with the assumption that there is much beauty, power, creativity, and capacity—reflections of their Maker—masked by all the outward limitations. She sees the image of the Holy, transcendent One, and she treats that image with the sacred honor it deserves. As a result, she values the capacity these children hold to contribute to the world around them, in small and large ways.
Maybe that’s why, even now, twenty years into this, twenty years of 24/7 care for dozens of quite physically needy kids, she still smiles a deeply caring, joyful smile. She has learned, as Augustine said, “to love the Creator in the creature,” and therein lies her secret to sustaining in a hard place without burnout or smoldering cynicism.
“As you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.” - Matthew 25:40
Kim’s story might inspire you to want to give. But there isn’t a link, and that is intentional. Kim’s story pushes all of us to ask a bigger question than where to donate our money. We have to consider where to donate ourselves. We follow One who generously and extravagantly gifts us, not just life and breath and everything, but His very own presence. “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” So, the most profound gift that we, as people made in His image, can give to another is not our money or commodities. The richest gift we have to offer is to invest our simple yet sacred selves—to go near, to listen, to convey the joy that the Creator has in them, to allow others to experience the Life of Christ that unabashedly dwells in us. As James says, “This is true religion.”
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