A need for CONSTANT compassion

[Nathanial]
I would like to echo some of RyNy’s message from a few weeks ago. God is literally answering our prayers. People [mostly young, short ones] are showing up on our doorstep. We are also establishing relationships with our neighbors and people in our immediate community. In the past week we have had supper with 2 out of the other 6 condos in the Ekklesiah building!
As these opportunities continue to be placed in front of our paths, I feel a big conviction. It’s almost as if God is staying, “you asked for it, now back it up.” While many of our answered prayers and relational opportunities at Ekklesiah are encouraging, many also are extremely challenging. Some of the children we are meeting come from very different homes or styles of parental upbringing. Encounters have come with children who have become accustomed to fighting or having yelling be socially acceptable to their interaction with others. It can be emotionally draining for us to drop whatever we are doing around the house to be constantly available to meet the needs of the kids.
The perspective needs to be constantly shifted away from human frustration and focus instead on compassion and a broken heart for these boys and girls. I have had a young girl yell at my face, and while my patience is quite tested, the challenge becomes to find strategies to break those walls of anger and find individual ways to love that one child. It is also interesting that the same girl can come over the next day and have a totally different attitude. Two days, two moods, same person. It is important to acknowledge how this is similar to my own roller coaster of emotions life. We are all human creations that each have our good days and bad days.
Pray for our balance and guidelines with these new relationships. Is losing our entire bowl of fruit to children in one afternoon really that big of a deal? How can we teach these kids that knocking on someone’s door is more considerate than opening their font door and walking straight in? It is a prayer to use these difficult situations as “educational opportunities” to give a Christ -like example for these children. We need to be praying that the hearts of the inhabitants here would constantly be filled with compassion and prepared to love whenever these neighbor children visit. It is a praise to meet some of our neighbors. Allowing those relationships to continue to grow can only assist the mission of our house. Pray that we “step up” individually [and together] with God’s spirit at our side and take our opportunities head on!