The art of helping.

There is something about one person taking action that I believe encourages others to join in if one sets an example. Some people may think one person may not make a difference but I believe they can. A few days ago as I was walking on the beach, the clouds were coming in and it was getting windy. The boats were all anchored in the distance to keep from coming on the shore, except this one boat (to give you a picture, it was a small rowboat size). I noticed a Thai man struggling to bring the boat to shore that had filled up with water. I turned to my friend and we both looked at each other suggesting maybe we should go help this man. This story may not necessarily be just one person taking action to start but the narrative shows that we both had the thought individually to help this man with the small boat caught up in the tide. I put my back pack on the beach and me and my friend started walking out to the Thai man asking if he needed help. I than waved over a group of young looking Spanish students that had been contemplating to take action just as much as I had to help this man. About 8 of us went over and started helping him haul the water out of the boat, one person ran to get a bucket to help scoop the water out and together as a team, after a few tries the boat made it out of the water! The action of me and my friend compelled others to join and help, and together the boat was brought to shore. 

This reminded me of the body of Christ by helping those in need. This man was in need and people extended a hand. Warms my heart when people come together! Regardless of faith, in love and out of human nature we all, inside of us crave love! 

One person can make a difference and start a movement. I saw this quote by Martin Luther King Jr.

"The saving of our world from pending doom will come, not through the complacent adjustment of the confirming majority, but through the creative maladjustment of a nonconforming minority."

This quote ignited a passion in my heart to join a revolution of loving your neighbour as yourself. The pressures of this world each and every day can be so difficult. A world that is constantly telling you, that to be beautiful and happy you need more and more and so many people end up in a rut, believing they don't have these materialistic temporary things the world sells. What if loving and serving others was the message of magazines, tv shows, mission statements of business and so on. Jesus' sweet enduring love. 

A beautiful women of God named Francine that I met months ago at church in Toronto along with her Husband Jobin wrote this on their blog little while back. The words they wrote radiated off the page into my heart,  awakening my soul! 

"But Love always restores humanity to itself and believes in a better narrative. From the cries heard between the silence of war, to the innocence lost in the darkness of brothels, to the dignity destroyed on the cold concrete of homelessness - our humanity is bound to Love's restoration and everyday we rewrite what it means to be human. From that place*, my paradigms are reversed, my prejudices are undone and my life is sold out to something that can't be bought. That's when being fully human becomes about loving my neighbour, as myself. That's when Christ is all I have to give, and Christ is all I have to get. That's when there's no price too high, no place too far, and no person too different- but I see myself in the stranger, the orphan and the widow. Against an age that has made beauty objective into what is seen in the mirror, Love reminds me that it's rather the lens in which I see others. In that light, every breath becomes lived out as a prayer and Christ is the very the lens through which I see others- and I see the image of whom we were created after in everyone."

My paradigms are radically changed with Jesus. 

Be encouraged brothers and sisters!

Much love,

-A

I got to ride an elephant this week with a guy named Paddy from England! What a blast!