Be the Church

By Ken Hekman

I’ve seen a preacher now and then
With arrogance and double-chin
And habits that remind me of
A cross between a hawk and dove.
He chooses whom he loves and hates
With passive and aggressive traits,
While calling from his lofty perch:
Care to join us? Be the church!”
I’ve heard a thousand tales unfold
Of places where you fit the mold,
But seldom does the church take aim
To serve the poor and aid the lame.
When needs are greatest, who is there
To offer more than pious prayer?
Will Christians end the desperate search,
And will they dare to be the church?
To be the church is so much more
Than opening the massive door,
Or calling to a passing soul
How Jesus’ love can make them whole.
It’s more than prayer, more than songs;
It’s taking chances, righting wrongs,
Getting dirty, shedding tears,
Helping people face their fears.
Where two or three will come to meet
And throw themselves at Jesus’ feet,
The Lord is likely to be found
To claim them as His hallowed ground;
Their selfless service, acts of love
Reflect the heart of God above.
When people join Him while He works
You’re bound to find them be the church.

Ways You Can Help With WCS Projects

Can we help? There are many ways teachers, parents, grandparents, children, and all who are concerned about God’s children throughout the world can help with these projects. For more information about each of the following programs visit

• Lunch Money Fund – There are children in India for whom the only meal of the day is the lunch that is served to them in school. For only 30 cents a day a child can have that one very important meal. Think how wonderful it would be if grandparents would suggest, “When it is your birthday you will get a birthday present, as always. However, we will also send enough money for 100 children to have a meal at school because it is your birthday.

• Sponsor a school - The School Sponsorship Program provides operational funds and prayer support for schools around the world. This program makes it possible for children to receive a high quality, Christ-centered, community transforming education where typically no other educational options exist. A total of $34 per month ($400/year) will help a Christian school in an especially needy area to pay for operational costs and offer tuition to those who can't afford it. Imagine what would happen if each North American Christian school or family sponsored one needy school in another part of the world.

• My Own Bible – For only $5.00 a child in Africa can not only receive a Bible but also will be trained by The Bible League in reading and understanding that Bible. Imagine what would happen if one class of children in every North American Christian school collected funds for this purpose!

• Playground equipment – In many of the schools we help the children have no sports equipment or playground equipment such as soccer balls, bats, softballs, jump ropes or other things. Usually these things can best be purchased by the teachers. But they have no money for such equipment.

Gypsy's Loot!

Gypsy, the Asia Field Development Director of Worldwide Community Schools has an online gift shop. You will find it at: http://stores.ebay.com/Gypsys-Loot

This is what she says:

As I travel, I come across lots of "stuff" that my friends (like YOU)
would appreciate. I also work with school partners who have handiwork
enterprises to help sustain the operational costs of their schools. I
thought I'd try a little experiment with an online gift shop. Please
give me your comments and honest feedback.

GRAND OPENING SALE of my eBay Gift Shop! Now through Friday, June 19-22.

20% OFF everything in the store, plus FREE SHIPPING when you purchase 5
or more items.

100% of the proceeds support Worldwide Community Schools, developing
schools and providing quality education to children in Asia who have the
least opportunity to education.

Gypsy Meadows

866.400.0040 (toll-free)

Cherie’ Horton's music

I have found the most wonderful CD! The title is Jesus Paid it All. The CD features the piano music of Cheire’ Horton along with a trumpet, saxophone, cello, and guitar. What I love about this CD is that it is a classical arrangement of some of our favorite old hymns. The arrangements are brillient!

So often these days people are singing “praise and worship” songs, which are fine. But many of us are concerned that the older hymns may be forgotten.

As soon as I locate her website I will tell you how to order it for yourself.

A Promise

If you close your ear to the cry of the poor, you will cry out and not be heard.

- Proverbs 21:13

Come to our store!

If you have visited the Worldwide Christian Schools website you know that we are planning a great celebration in honor of our 20th anniversary. The celebration will take place on July 21 in Grand Rapids, Michigan, at our new address near 131 and Franklin.

One of the features of that celebration will be a small store in which we will be selling items we have selected from our travels. Here are just a few of the things you will find:

Jewelry

Dresses from India

Silk scarves from India and China

Peanut bars called "Chickies" made by a woman in India under the supervision of a nutritionist.

Check out our website: www.wcs-us.org

Lillian

I want to tell you about Lillian, one of our Worldwide Community Schools/India board members. Lillian started a Christian school for children in need in a place that is a three-hour drive from Bangalore. She is the head of the school but speaks with great humility. “I never thought I would be doing this. I am a nutritionist and it was my intention to work in my own area. However, when you see such a need, you just can’t stand by.”

Lillian’s school serves students from kindergarten through grade 12. We were excited to read her latest email concerning how well the students did on their recent state examinations. We praise God for the wonderful results in the board examinations conducted in March 2007.The results were published yesterday and what a joy to find that all students have secured 1st class and the 1st mark is 91%.The highest mark in maths is 98%,English 88%,Science 88% and Social studies 90%.These students who came in to this school without knowing an alphabet in their mother tongue and English have come to this level by the grace of God .I am so delighted in the Lord to see my vision coming true. I thank you for your prayers and encouragement in carrying out the vision God has given me.

I wonder sometimes how Lillian manages to do everything she does. Worldwide Community Schools provides money so that the school children will have at least one lunch a day. Lillian supervises that preparation. She also prepares the meals for her own family before she leaves for school in the morning. Preparing a meal in India is considerably more work than preparing a meal in a western country because so much of their food preparation involves chopping vegetables. She says that she enjoys that food preparation because she is a nutritionist.

In addition to her work at the school, Lillian has found time to help a family develop a small business that provides the income they need for survival. She taught the mother how to make peanut “chickies”. The chickies are delicious, nutritious, peanut bars and I bought 20 of them to bring home with me. The bars are dense and filling and the 20 bars really added to my luggage weight. One-eighth of a bar is a filling snack to have with a cup of coffee. Lillian allows the woman to make them in the school kitchen. It is comforting for me to know that Lillian supervises the operation. Since I don’t know the woman who makes them, knowing Lillian means that the bars will have no preservatives and will be right for us to eat.

Gypsy, my colleague, told me that the children at Lillian’s school have very little in the line of sports equipment, such as soccer balls. They must learn to read English but have only very few books available to them. It would be so great to send them money for things like that.

The Teachers’ Conference in Bangalore

What a busy, interesting time we have had in India. Our first conference this year was in Bangalore at the Frontier Management Centre. We now have teachers who have attended all four of the conferences we have held, either in Bangalore or in Chennai. What a joy it is to see them again each year.

Siani and Suphola from Orissa were there again, of course. That young couple is so amazing. They are in their 20s and their orphanage with 50 children, including two who were born to them, is flourishing. The foundation is ready for the new school next to the orphanage. When that school is finished the orphans will attend it as well as many children from the surrounding area Hindu families. Orissa is largely Hindu but the parents see that the Christian school is very good and so they want to send their children to that school when it is ready. What a wonderful opportunity to tell Hindu children of the saving grace of Jesus Christ.

This year another pastor from Orissa attended our conference and he also is the head of an orphanage. There are so many abandoned children in India. Sometimes it is because of HIV/AIDS and at other times it is because of the extreme poverty in which the parents live. I try to picture what it would be like to have no food for my children and to have to place them in an orphanage. Most of us in the western world would say, “Surely we would be able to find some food, somewhere. We would never give our children up.” But we only say that because we haven’t any idea of what it is to live in such abject poverty.

I wish I could remember the names of the people I met during that conference. This year we were there just at the beginning of the monsoon season. A wonderful woman who heads a Christian school in Bangalore told me that her constant prayer during the rains is that the walls of her school won’t come tumbling down. Two Roman Catholic sisters spoke so warmly of the Holy God we worship and we all said that our different Christian denominations must not separate us. The people I met at the conference were such a blessing to me and to all of us.

I want to keep my blog posts reasonably short and so I will stop here. But this isn’t all you will read about India.