One of my friends asked him, "Where are your greatest frustrations right now?"
"The American church" Lars said without hesitation.
"Explain", my friend said.
"The church in America has so much and yet it is very difficult to help them to see how desperate the need is around the world." Lars continued, "As an example, for the price of a Starbucks coffee, a person could save a life."
He says it with just a touch of irritation.
Lars is one of those guys who commands your attention. For one thing- he stands about 6 foot 6 inches- for another, he has a deep thick Swedish accent that gives him an added air of importance when he speaks. As the former head of the International Bible Society, he is on a first name basis with some of the most recognized leaders in American Christianity. Years of sneaking Bibles under the iron curtain have hammered away any sense of apprehensive fear. "I don't have any more time to be nice" he told me one time. Lars has put literally hundreds of thousands of Bibles in the hands of people around the world. He could have retired to the comfort of his native Sweden many years ago- and yet he is a man on a mission.
This is one of the reasons I like Lars so much. He is a guy who knows how to get things done- and for all the right reasons. He's the guy who talked me into going to India last October. I remember praying the day before Michael Butler and I left on that trip, "God, I don't know why on earth I'm doing this. I have no business in India. I can think of at least a hundred reasons I should stay home."
The results are well documented in my October blogs- so I won't go into it. Suffice it to say it changed things for me. India has gotten under my skin. I can't get the orphaned children of India out of my head- or heart.
On the way home from the trip I told Michael, "I know why we came here. It was because of the orphanage- the Hope Center in Motipur. I think God wants our church to help build it."
I don't know how it will happen. I am not sure what God has in mind, but I believe God will use us there. I believe God wants to use a group of Christians from Oklahoma City to build an orphanage on the edge of the Napal rain forest so that children can be taken off the streets of Delhi and Lucknow and Calcutta and given a new life.
I think about it now every time I drive by a Starbucks.
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