by Kimberly | Sep 2, 2015 | hearthopejustice
(Most of you know about heart.hope.justice: a ministry of handlettering prints that support ministries or people or families who care about and are involved in different types of justice ministries.)
Heart.Hope.Justice supports justice ministries and families and persons who love justice for the sake of the gospel. I’d love for y’all to meet Sophie. Here is her story: keep reading to find out how you can support her trip and ministry and get yourself a handlettered art piece.
- Tell us a bit about yourself: My name is Sophie McDonald, I’m 26, I live in Paducah, Kentucky, and I have been mesmerized by the God of the universe.
His glory is the reason I have breath
and His Gospel the reason
I’m no longer who I used to be.
My passion is for the nations to see and be transformed by the stunning truth of the Gospel, but my heart beats with a fiery desire for young girls and women to see the real source of beauty—Jesus Christ. I am convinced true beauty comes only from a life fully devoted to following Christ and that until God is enough, nothing ever will be. To this Truth I give my tiny vapor of a life. You can also find me working full time as assistant editor over at RTM Magazine, an interactive Christian web magazine designed for iPads and Android tablets (also available for viewing online)
2. Why this trip and this team you are with? Great question. Simple answer: The IMB (International Mission Board) asked me to consider going and God gave complete peace about it. The peace turned into a burden. A burden for the beautiful people in this particular area to hear and know and be radically changed by the Gospel of Jesus Christ and to be freed not only from sin slavery but human slavery.
Check out some of the stats from the specific area to which we’re going in South Asia:
- Population: Almost 30 billion
- Believers: 0.9%
- 93% unreached by the Gospel (this means they’re dying and going to an eternal hell and have yet to hear of another option)
- This specific area is listed in the top 10 countries as THE place to practice modern slavery
- More than 15,000 women are trafficked from this country to another country ANNUALLY and more than 7,500 children are trafficked domestically
- Approx. 200,000 girls and women are working in brothels here
- Even believers don’t always know the signs of trafficking or what to watch for to prevent the trafficking of their own children
I wept the first time I was faced with the reality of those facts. How can we sit back and do nothing? We must go. We’re commanded to. If we don’t, who will?
Seven of us will be going as part of a Women’s Mission Immersion Team through the IMB and I am thrilled to go under the leadership of my sweet friend Lori McDaniel. Our team will participate in several mission opportunities from discipling national believers in individual and conference settings to praying for and working in areas where women are exploited. This team also has a component of mission training, where we will be learning tools that we can implement both in the States and overseas.
What’s your bigger picture for this trip? The big picture is Revelation 7:9-12, “After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, ‘Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!’ And all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshipped God, saying, ‘Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might by to our God forever and ever! Amen.’”We spend our days, we labor across the globe and across the street, with that vision in mind. The bigger picture is to spend our short little lives on this earth in the God-ordained mission of gathering more eternal worshippers for the one true God. We live this day with that Great Day in focus. That’s the bigger picture for this trip; to make disciples who make disciples so that more worshippers are surrounding the throne for all eternity giving Jesus Christ, our suffering Savior, the glory due His name.
What’s some verses that God has used to bring justice ministries into your heart?
Over the past couple of weeks God has really put Psalm 72 on my heart. In that Psalm, which most linguists attribute to Solomon, we find what one theologian called “A glowing description of the reign of Messiah as righteous, universal, beneficent, and perpetual, to which are added a doxology and a postscript.” It is a stunning picture of our Lord in all His breathtaking (literally) holiness and through that we get a glimpse into His heart for hopeless humanity, “For he delivers the needy when he calls, the poor and him who has no helper. He has pity on the weak and the needy, and saves the lives of the needy. From oppression and violence he redeems their life, and precious is their blood in his sight” (vss. 12-14). If we are Christ’s representatives on this earth and He, through the Holy Spirit, is to live His life through us, then are we not to do what He does? He loves the poor, the weak, the needy, the outcasts, the rejects, the wretched (all of which we were). We are to do the same, extending the same grace, mercy, kindness and steadfast love we have received from the Giver of all good gifts.
What have you learned about God as you prepare for this trip?
Using a few different mediums, God has exposed in colors more vibrant than ever the essential connection between the local church and His heartbeat for the nations. Vance Pitman said, “When God birthed your church He had the nations on His heart. It was never about you.” And Christopher Wright said, “The church of God does not have a mission in the world. The God of mission has a church in the world.” So in the birth of a church God invites us to join in His kingdom activity, which translates into the command to make disciples of all nations (including our own). So how do we connect what God is doing locally in our church to what God is doing globally? How do we reach the world as well as the people right around us? We study Jesus. And as we’ve been studying Him, I’ve learned more about His “method” seen throughout Scripture of scattering and gathering, of blessing people to be a blessing for others and teaching others so they can in turn teach those around them, all for His global (and eternal) glory, and it has been so humbling and exciting. We have been rescued from our rebellion to share with other traitors the hope of the Gospel that can free them from slavery forever—this is amazing! What a holy and sacred calling God has given His church. A calling that constantly forces our dependence on the Eternal One, for only the Eternal can produce eternal results. Be Thou our vision.
So, how can you support Sophie and her team? By emailing me at kimddavidson @ gmail dot com and telling me you want to order one of these 5×7 prints in mint green (with black lettering). For 16$ you will be supporting Sophie and her team with 10$ and 6$ will be for shipping/handling and then goes right back toward other justice ministries.
by Kimberly | Jun 13, 2015 | hearthopejustice
Here is another way that heart.hope.justice gets to support families who are loving orphans!
I’ve known Aaron Tant for about ten years (and his wonderful family). I met Lisa when they moved to Louisville and I got to know them when we were all attending Sojourn Church there.
Here is a brief synopsis of their story:
Aaron and I have been married for 9 years this July and we have two children, Elias, who is almost 7, and Sophia, who is 4. We have always had a heart for children with special needs and we desired to one day adopt a child with special needs. A few weeks ago a friend who is a social worker made us aware of a child who will soon be available for adoption. In order to be consider to be this child’s adoptive parents, we must become licensed foster parents in our state and we must get our home ready for the required home study. The biggest priority is remodeling the basement. Currently we have a guest room on our main floor which will need to become this child’s room. That means that our basement, that is partially finished but not a very pleasant place, needs to be remodeled into a functioning guest space. We would also like to open up our kitchen to accommodate more people. Another large purchase we will need to make is a mini-van. We are currently working to raise money to cover the costs. Our goal is to raise enough money to purchase an appropriate vehicle and do the necessary renovations in our home. Then if there is any money left over we will use that money to pay down our debt. We want to be the best stewards of our resources so that we can best care for our children, and we feel that getting rid of our debt is one way to do that.
You can support them by heading over to the heart.hope.justice page and taking a look at the print and then sending me an email (kimddavidson@gmail.com) and tell me what color cardstock you want your print in. The ink will be black, but I can vary the cardstock color. The prints are 5.7 and 16$ 10$ of every sale will go directly to the Tant family and the rest will go to printing, shipping, and supply cost. I make nothing.
by Kimberly | Apr 28, 2015 | Arkansas, hearthopejustice
It is so neat to see what the Lord calls your friends to do. Currently, I have friends telling people about Jesus all over the world, including Nepal where the earthquake just happened, in Baltimore, where the riots are happening, and I have a sweet friend who is about to head to South Africa to love on babies who have no parents.
My friend Sarah, from Little Rock, tells a bit of her story:
“I am thrilled to be headed towards South Africa to serve the Lord with 1Hope Ministries International. After spending almost 10 years as a pediatric nurse in Arkansas, I’m excited for this new challenge of spending my days discipling young women to know and love Jesus Christ. I’ll primarily be working with interns in their late teens/early 20s who come from all over the world to volunteer at the Muphamuzi Baby Home, a home for abandoned babies awaiting “forever families.” I’m currently about $20,000 away from my fundraising goal and working to get my house on the market. As soon as funds are raised and my house it sold, it’s off to Africa for me! Can’t wait!
1Hope: http://1hope4africa.com
My Blog: http://1hope4africa.com
You can purchase a
heart.hope.justice print (justice for loving and taking care of orphans) and with each print sold, Sarah gets 10$ toward her remaining funds left to raise. I’m not going to South Africa anytime soon, but want to help support those who are going.
by Kimberly | Feb 21, 2015 | Books, hearthopejustice, Women, World Events
Sex. God created it. Blessed it. He saw that it was good.
Then sin destroyed it. Sin distorts and kills everything.
There is only one hope for sin: Jesus.
In the Fall, I heard Dr. Albert Mohler give a talk at my church. He shared the trauma and results of living in a sexually-broken world. How far and wide its affects are. This one area touches so many other avenues in the churches, our homes, our societies, and our world.
Allow me to explain what I mean when I say a “sexually-broken”: anything outside of God’s amazing plan for a hope-filled, Christ-exalting sex life within a marriage of two people: a man and a woman, for life. Everything else is sin. And that leads to a sexually-broken world.
This brokenness can come in the form of physical/sexual abuse, pornography, lust, rape, addictions (think 50 Shades of Gray), homosexuality, sex-trafficking, prostitution…the list could go on.
Some of you might not be aware of how pervasive this brokenness is. But, look that the Super Bowl for example: one of the highest profiting days for selling sex.
Some of you might not think that this brokenness affects you. But, I assure it does. Sexual sin affected me starting in college. Not my own, but someone else’s. This still affects my thought life to some degree. Then my own sexual sin left scars of guilt in my heart that I still carry now (and I fight with the truth of forgiveness and the power of the Gospel). You probably know friends who have been raped, abused, who are addicted to pornography, who struggle with lust, who have had sex before marriage, who do not have wonderfully fulfilling sexual relations in marriage, or who bring sexual scars into their marriage and suffer mentally and physically from them.
Now, that we know a little of the problem, how we do fix our sexual-brokenness? Hownestly – we can’t. We need a Fixer. That’s why Jesus came. During His time on earth, he did ministry in the life of at last three women who were sexually broken: Mary Magdelene, the woman at the well in John 4, and the woman who was caught in adultery. His blood on the cross covered all of our sins – not just our sexual sinfulness.
You may be the cause of your own brokenness (your sinful addictions, etc), or the brokenness may come from the outside (rape, abuse, bondage, etc). Once we have that relationship with Jesus, there are a few things that will offer hope in Christ and the Gospel:
- First, if you are in a dangerous, life-threatening, abusive relationships, get help now. Exit the situation. Cry for intervention.
- Realize your own brokenness. This is something that has been helpful for me in the past year: admitting my failures and admitting how I am feeling. Know that sin is sin. If God would mark iniquity who of us could stand (Psalm 130:3)? Here is an example: I am angry or hurt. How often are we encouraged to hide our hurt or made to feel ashamed of it? This admittance is helpful and not a sign of weakness. We can confess our brokenness and engage our feelings with the Lord. The Holy Spirit dwells in us and helps us in our weakness.
- Seek counseling. I personally would recommend a biblical counselor (See ACBC for help). Another go to would be a Christ-exalting pastor/wife you know. One of my sweet friends recently suggested this to me. Find someone whom you can confide and who will weep with you and feed you truth (not let you continue in sin).
- Journal. This is a form of meditation which is definitely recommended from the Psalmists. This has been a huge help to me this year. My friend and also a pastor friend of mine encouraged me in this and it has been a tremendous blessing. The Psalms are a great place to start! There are so many trials, blessings, Godward-cries, even sexual sin in this gem (Psalm 51). Its answers are the very healing words of God.
- Seek repentance. He is faithful to forgive (1 John 1.8) If you are the committing the sexual sin then turn from it. Keep turning from it. My husband mentioned the idea of starving your sinful appetites. They will diminish if you starve them. Satan may have you in a snare but Christ is the chain-breaker.
- Forgive. Forgiving doesn’t mean forgetting. Truely forgiving means not holding it against that person for the rest of his/her life. Christ can and wants to bring healing. In the Lord’s Prayer (Matthew 6), Jesus instructs his followers to pray that God would forgive their debts as we forgive our debtors.
- Believe God at his Word. There is hope! He is the deliverer. He is the chain-breaker. He is the Healer. He wants your good! Love protects. God wins. Heaven is real. You are precious and beautiful and bought with the blood of Christ. I loved this quote in Megan Cox’s book Give Her Wings: “Hard men believe that Jesus is a hard man. Which means they do not really know him. Believe if you know Jesus you understand His mercies.” (p 100)
Please know that there is no easy answer for sexual brokenness. Healing is hard. Jesus brings freedom and healing and hope and love. That doesn’t mean we still don’t live in a sin-plagued world that wreaks of death. We will have the consequences of sin.
Jesus offers hope.
Jesus’ love protects and is faithful.
You can be victorious in Jesus.
(This post is sponsored by heart.hope.justice and Give Her Wings. Megan Cox has just written this new book as a devotional for those who have been affected by abuse. In is she shares her own story, or years of counseling, and Gospel-focused hope. What I found helpful in this book is the Christ-exalting message on so many of its pages. Counseling won’t solve all your problems. Jesus is the answer for everything. heart.hope.justice is a dream of mine. Its partial goal is to bring healing and financial help in the area of sexual brokenness by an artwork that I did – and the proceeds will go to help some sex-trafficking end it movements.)
