Heidi Baker - Learning to Love: Passion, Compassion and the Essence of the Gospel

Hong Kong, the late 80s . Having begun Iris Ministries in 1980 in the United States as a short-term missions organization reaching out to the Philippines, and later basing ourselves in Indonesia, Rolland and I were eventually denied permanent missionary visas and found ourselves on a plane to Hong Kong, where we would minister for the next few years.

Walking through the backstreets one day, far from the bright lights and bustling thoroughfares of downtown, I saw a small girl huddled in an alleyway. She was lost, alone, dirty and abandoned. The thought struck me: If I dont pause to show this girl even the smallest, most basic act of kindness, then who will? She wasnt crying out, demanding my attention or making a fuss. It would have been so easy to just keep walking, look the other way, go about my business....

London, England, the early 90s. Rolland and I moved to England to study for our PhDs at the University of London. In this vast, sprawling conurbation we found the same paradox: incredible wealth living shoulder to shoulder with utter poverty and desperation. In London this can somehow co-exist in areas barely one street apartor even at opposite ends of the same street!

In no time at all we were confronted with the need we had encountered on the streets of Hong Kong. A homeless man was roaming the streets. He had lived another life in Eastern Europe as a celebrated concert pianist. He had left everything and moved to London to further his career. But the expected connections never made good, doors of opportunity shut in his face and his finances dwindled. Before he knew it, he had nothing; no credentials in this city and no way of returning to his former life. I saw him sitting in a doorway, lost in his thoughts, wondering how circumstances had conspired to bring him to this. He reminded me of the little girl in Hong Kong; he had that same faraway look of resigned hopelessness.

Someone had to do something. We began a church among the homeless, which we ran for the duration of our doctoral studies. We were determined that the homeless should not also be the hopeless .

Mozambique, the mid-90s. We arrived in Mozambique in 1995 and it has been the focus of our ministry ever since. One day I came across a young girl by the roadside. She was a ten-year-old with one leg missing, which she had lost in a house fire. Being of no use to anyone as an amputee, her grandmother had ordered her brothers to stone her to death in a field. One less mouth to feed. They left her for dead, but she somehow survived. Now she was living on the street, selling her body for the price of a soda or a mouthful of bread. It broke my heart to see her and I was faced with that question again: Who will stop for this one? Who will make a difference in her life? Who will be the hands of Jesus to her?

This little girl, Elaina, taught me that love looks like something . What is love if it does not look like somethinga comforting word, an offer of help, something to eat, clothes to wear? This is the Gospel.

I realize that reading this account of what God is doing in Mozambique can seem terrifying, overwhelming and somewhat detached from the day-to-day reality of life for many.

Or is it?

If there is one thing I have learned it is this: Poverty and desperation do not always look the way we expect. There are countless thousands in our world who need someone to stop for them, someone to show them Gods kindness and mercy. Never let the fact that they wear suits and drive nice cars fool younor the fact that they appear to have their lives together. Simmering just below the surface is the same hopelessness and despair that lived in the eyes of the girl in the alleyway, the man in the doorway, the girl by the roadside; they have simply learned to disguise it. There are people in need where you are, just as there are people in need where I am.