HIM Conference, Part 4; Compassion Intl, Bart Campolo

So in this post I hope to hit two topics that happened during the same session, specifically one of the youth general sessions that I attended (with our teens, but funny, it didn't seem like there were many youth leaders with their students, I wonder why). During this session, we heard from Bart Campolo, Tony's son, who does much in the world of Christianity, but gave us a great sermon on friendship. The other part was before all that, a girl spoke for Compassion International; I will start with the Compassion story.

We totally didn't know this speaker was coming and I must admit up front that what I can write will not even come near capturing the gravity of the event. I continually go over the situation in my head and heart but I cannot put it into words. There comes a point when language fails and you cannot describe heart movements and aching. Anyway, that is my confession/preface.

So this young girl (actually about our age) comes up to the stage in the midst of a worship set and begins speaking about compassion intl. She begins to tell the story of poverty and brokenness her family experienced. She talks about the irresistible gravity of drugs and alcohol in the impoverished portion of the Philippines where she grew up. She talks about how great unemployment was and how she lived in a house with 17 of her relatives. She told of her father falling into world of drugs and how it tore the house she lived in apart. She talked about her father leaving due to the drugs and the pain that that caused. She then gave a glimpse into the extent of their poverty when she recalled a time when her, her mother and two brothers shared a cup of noodles as their only food for that day.

Then She talked about Compassion. She talked about being physically supported with food and health care. She talked about being educationally supported through the school that compassion worked with and sent her to. She talked about the knowledge of Christ that she received and how she was spiritually supported throughout. She also talked about her emotional support through correspondence with her sponsors. She talked about going to college because of compassion and graduating and earning a job in marketing with a Christian organization. And she spoke of the opposing cycle compassion creates; instead of a doomed cycle of poverty, she now supports and sponsors child herself, takes care of her family and has seen the reconciliation and healing of her father. And she told all this with a face so joyful and heartfelt you could not help but be floored by her heavenly peace, joy and hope.

My writing cannot convey the incredible mixture of heaviness and hope that was in that conference room that morning. I felt a divinely real mixture of a picture of real poverty, of real redemption and hope. It was as if the whole room's hearts were broken for this picture of poverty, but also rejoiced in the redeemed story we faced. It was flesh and bones, hair and a reality we had never experienced. It was a picture of God and how God reaches into the broken depths of our world to lift us out and bring us into the universe changing Kingdom of redemption. I felt like I had been hit in the chest with a sledgehammer. I felt like I understood a little better what I just finished reading in Rick McKinley's book, This Beautiful Mess; that God's redemptive Kingdom somehow doesn't fit the neat little flannel-board picture we create for it.

I cannot say anymore about this other than, if you have the opportunity to sponsor a compassion child, absolutely do; and if you have an opportunity to hear a compassion child share their story in person, also do that.

Now onto Bart Campolo. I have heard him speak before and am impressed by his honesty, transparency and the way he challenges those who hear him. This session did not disapoint. the title was "the art of friendship", but he began by sharing that he felt like his original talk was dumbed down for the HS-ers, so he said, as he was preparing that morning, he decided to take it another way and spent the next half hour admonishing these safe, sheltered teens to step out and be real friends to gay people. He clearly shared many times that his goal was not to change the listener's thoughts on whether it was right or wrong, but simply that Jesus calls us to love those in need, and he argued, there are few more in need of friendship than homosexuals in high school. I wont go into any specifics but will say that it challenged our kids and me personally. I want to do a good job of loving gay people as Jesus would, but after this talked I realized I'm not doing well at all. It was sobering and challenging, so all in all, a real kick-you-in-the-face session, and I am working to do a better job at both these subjects.
Only In Love