Tag: people

Posted in Through the Bible Devotions

Imagine the possibilities

Posted on by William Douthwaite
Kenya
Madagascar
Haiti

Jesus went throughout all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.” (Matthew 9:35-38)

One of my most vivid memories from our medical mission trips was encountering a sea of people every place we set up a clinic. We would leave the guest house early in the morning to drive on highways, narrow city streets, back roads, dirt roads, and across shallow streams. Our driver would successfully navigate steep rutted hills, mountainside roads with no guardrails, and insist his way through standstill traffic in the middle of towns with no traffic lights.

When we finally arrived at a school, church, or tent, a crowd of men, women, children, were waiting for us. Everyone showed up in remote places where there was no medical. Some had walked miles through the night to get from their town to the place where they heard the clinic would be. From nursing newborns to grandparents with canes, lines filled makeshift waiting rooms.

Every day was a full day. The providers, nurses, and pharmacists saw three to four hundred patients a day and gave out as much medication as we could bring with us. Each day a new crowd was a new challenge.

When Jesus saw similar crowds in the cities and villages of Galilee, he saw an opportunity. He saw people who desperately needed teaching, compassion, healing, and a shepherd. Jesus saw beyond people and problems to a harvest ready to be gathered.

What would it be like to see the world like Jesus did? Sometimes I feel compassion. More often I’m amazed and annoyed at the number of people who appear harassed and helpless. My eyes see impossibility rather than possibilities.

Lord, help me see people like you do.

Posted in Life

Engage

Posted on by William Douthwaite

As I sat enjoying my coffee, I noticed a man just a few feet away busily tapping on a phone screen. He was seated at a larger table, one with four chairs. In each of the chairs was a bulging backpack. A pile of books was stacked on the table in front of him, along with a tote bag overflowing with plastic bags.

At first, I thought the backpacks belonged to friends of his who had stepped away from the table to use the restroom or pick up coffee. But no one ever came to the table. When the gentleman stepped away, once to buy a coffee, and again to buy a bag of chips, he took the tote bag with him.

Suddenly, he stood up and methodically moved each backpack, his books and his tote bag to a smaller table, one with room for just too chairs.

I never got a chance to see what the books were or what he was looking at on his phone. I didn’t want him to think I was being nosy, although that’s exactly what I was.

Homeless? Perhaps, but I’m not certain. Nowhere to go that afternoon? I guess.

So now I’m wondering, why didn’t I just get up and get a look at what he was working on? Why didn’t I ask him about one of his books? Why did I hesitate to engage him in conversation? He clearly wasn’t a threat. The worst that could happen? He could give me a dirty look. Or tell me to mind my own business.

So maybe that will be my resolution for this year. Engage the people I notice or walk by.

Like the gentleman with a prosthetic leg sitting in the parking lot in a lawn chair with a sign “Had hard times, living in a truck.” He was just sitting there (not near a truck) with his wife. I look with curiosity. I wonder what the story is. But I didn’t engage that day.

But next time I will.

Posted in people

In the right place at the right time

Posted on by William Douthwaite

When I got done reading the biblical book of Esther a few months ago, I asked myself the question, “What people has God strategically put into my life?” Esther found herself in just the right place at just the right time to save her people. It wasn’t a coincidence. It was a God thing. Who else has been in the right place at the right time for me?

I’m stretching my memory here, but the first person that shows up on my radar is my eighth grade Algebra teacher, Mrs. Flaig. She was the first teacher who awakened my love for math and recognized my aptitude for that subject. She was tough but one of my favorite teachers ever. Mrs. Miller was like that, too. She taught my high school Algebra 2 and Calculus classes, always emphasizing “good mathematics!”

Then there are those who brought me along musically. Bonnie Strang taught me to play the trumpet in elementary through high school. My friend Gary Lefkowitz taught me to play guitar in college. An organist and choir director, Diane Allwein, let me play all kinds of sacred music on the trumpet at Luther Memorial Church in Tinton Falls, NJ, and gave me my first real experience in choral music. Rev. Richard Resch greatly expanded both my trumpet and choral music experiences while at the seminary.

A few pastors were in the right place at the right time, too. Pastor Don Sallach who told me at age thirteen, “You should think about being a pastor.” I never did, though, til I was twenty-six. Pastor Don Biggs in New Jersey who let me get very involved with music and youth work when I was new to the his church. Pastor Paul Harris, then a vicar in Austin, TX, who directed me towards seminary study. Pastor Dave Mulder, president of the New England District, ordained me and installed me at my first parish in Coventry, CT. He was a source of amazing encouragement in my first few years of ministry.

To this day, I still love math, music and ministry, no doubt because God had placed many of these people in my life “for such a time as this!”

Posted in people

Just like them

Posted on by William Douthwaite
Photo by Ravi Patel on Unsplash

I had a few hours to wait for some service to be done on my car, so walked up U.S. from Coggin Honda in St. Augustine to Panera Bread in Cobblestone Village. It was a really nice morning, so I didn’t mind the walk at all. I was wearing a pair of jeans, a hoodie, some old sneakers, my backpack containing some things to read and work on when I got to my coffee destination.

On the way I passed a number of people walking and riding bikes. After a few nods and “Hi’s” I realized that I looked just like them. You wouldn’t think that would be a revelation. But when I am driving along that same stretch of road, my mind immediately assigns the label “homeless” to these folks. Now on foot, I wondered, “I wonder what label they’re putting on me?”

Not my name. Not my profession. Not someone having their car serviced. Not someone on their way for coffee. They know nothing about where I live, my relationships, my faith, or how healthy I am.

I don’t know that about them, either. That’s a good reminder when I begin to assume they don’t have a home, don’t have a job, and haven’t had a meal. Or when I characterize them as not having relationships, education or ambition. It doesn’t take much to visually characterize someone in a negative way. It doesn’t take much at all.

I don’t like that about myself. I don’t like the way my mind immediately sizes someone up, usually in a disparaging way. I don’t even know where that tendency comes from. Where did I learn that?

It’s good to walk around in jeans and a t-shirt, being seen – but not known. It disciplines my heart and mind so that I am not so quick to draw conclusions. It clears my head of shallow assumptions. It helps me notice rather than look through those around me. It teaches me humility, kindness and grace. Cause when it comes down to it, I am just like them.