Lord, make me a doer!

Five girls from my 7th grade religion class stopped by our house this Tuesday afternoon during their lunch break. It was clear they just wanted to spend some time with their new "maestras," so I invited them to accompany me on an errand to the market. As we walked together, they asked me, "Do you have a boyfriend?" I told them no, because a boyfriend is a distraction to new missionaries who should be focusing only on God and on the mission. "Jesus is my boyfriend," I said with a smile. One of the girls excitedly agreed, "Jesus is my boyfriend, too!"

Once we arrived at the market, I asked the girls' opinion on whether they thought I should buy apples or oranges - I only had 25 pesos with me. One piped up, "Oranges!" and explained that they would be easier to divide amongst ourselves; everyone could have a section. For a moment I was speechless - I hadn't even considered sharing my fruit with them. After all, I had so little money in my purse, and I had been dreaming of biting into a juicy apple all day.

But the girls were right. For my Scripture meditation that very morning I read in the letter from James:
 "Be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who observes his natural face in a mirror, for he observes himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like." (James 1:22-24)

How quickly I had forgotten my role as a missionary, not just to read or speak the Word of God but to act upon it. How easily the bright smiles and humble hearts of these 7th graders put my American "all about me" attitude to shame.

And so we bought the oranges. Praise Jesus, each orange cost only 8 pesos, so I had enough money to buy us 3 oranges to share. We sat on the market steps, eating them happily and discussing stories of the saints. I told them the story of my patroness, St. Agnes - a young Roman girl just their age who was martyred for refusing to marry a nobleman because she had promised her purity to Jesus. The girls listened with rapt attention to everything I told them. Finally, they walked back to school for their afternoon classes, and I returned home, grateful for the reminder that the Lord has called me to this island to be both a hearer and a doer of His Word.

Loving island life!