THIS is what it’s all about!

As we entered one rural village in Tanzania last month, this woman and child were among the first people we met. It was an emotional moment as we heard part of her story and discovered quickly that she was the literal personification of what our work in Africa has been about for the past 14 years.

She is a widow, and the child is an orphan. Through the help of our ministry partner, SEED International, they have been brought together to form a new family unit. They are just one example of many.

When I first started going to East Africa regularly, in 1995, I went just to preach. I told people about Jesus, and a lot of people responded to the message and declared that they wanted to become followers of Jesus Christ.

But this was only the beginning.

We soon realized that a lot of the people who responded then disappeared from the new churches that were being started, so we began training the local churches we were working with. We taught them how they could follow-up on those initial decisions to follow Christ by simply loving the people, giving them teaching and helping them to learn how God’s love applied to their everyday lives.

Soon after, we discovered that the people who made those initial decisions to follow Christ were staying in the churches as they realized that they were truly loved and that God’s message to them was relevant to their lives.

But that still was only a beginning.

The work grew to the point of teaching leaders in these churches how to start new churches and use them as bases to impact their communities in a powerful, transforming way.

Mark Redwine, from Montana, joined our team and participated in the teaching. We taught the church leaders that they needed to do more than PREACH about God’s love; they needed to PERSONIFY God’s love by actively loving their communities.

The Bible says a true relationship with Christ means “to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” (James 1:27b) Some people think that being a Christian is about being separate FROM the world, but the reality is that a true Christ-follower is meant to ENGAGE the world with radical love. The Christian’s difference from the world is particularly in the way he or she loves the people who are in the world.

Local churches started taking the teaching to heart and began projects in their communities to help the poor, the hungry, and the lonely. They were planting crops and raising chickens that could be used to help feed the hungry, working with the orphans and widows, and coming up with various imaginative ways to engage their local communities with radical love.

Mark Redwine also took the teaching to heart. A very practical man, his heart was filled with a compassion for the people and a desire to help them make this vision a reality. He started SEED International as a resource development organization to come alongside these Christ-followers who were serious about seeing change in their villages and towns, in order to help them develop the resources needed and get the education necessary to learn how to make that kind of difference.

Now, whenever we go to East Africa, we don’t just TELL people about God’s love for them. We are able to work together to SHOW them and, long after our teams have to leave the villages, the work of telling and showing God’s love continues.

One of the many successful projects that have been started by the churches there is the orphans and widows project. Due to the many diseases that ravage the land, there are always a lot of orphans and widows in this part of the world. So here’s what’s happening…

Orphans are placed with widows to create a new family unit, and the widows are helped to set up trade in some kind of industry that will enable them to make a living. This way, rather than children simply growing up in an orphanage and widows being left alone until they die, they are all given a second chance at living life and experiencing the joy of family.

This August, we had a lot of wonderful times with the people in the villages. 290 adults made the decision to become followers of Christ, and that was exciting because we knew that they were sincere and that they were going to be cared for by a community of Christ-followers who would truly love them and help them to experience God’s love in a vibrant and transforming way. We also ran medical camps for people who couldn’t afford health-care, provided education about AIDS to the villages, had team members lead exceptional ministry for the children, and met with and encouraged the men and women who are carrying on this vision to see God’s love transform their world.

I’ll never forget the smiles of this woman and this child. Their smiles reminded me, and will continue to remind me, that all the hard work and difficulties we’ve encountered over the past 14 years are worth every moment. They also remind me that, no matter what challenges or difficulties we face, it’s worth the effort of continuing for many years to come.

I wonder what would happen in the rest of the world if followers of Christ everywhere would follow the example of these loving Tanzanians and begin to engage THEIR communities with this kind of love. Is there any chance this kind of revolution could start in your community through YOU?