thinking as I watch kids

Today I hung out with Joanna as she did paperwork to live and work here. It is just amazing the hoops that one has to jump through, but it was cool cuz she got a lot done... thanks Mark...

Tonight, I walked from my friend's house out in Star Mountain (way north Bp) to the train and then rode it to the city. As I stood waiting for the train and on the train I was watching the interactions of the teenagers. There was this one group of kids, three boys and a girl, they were about 15 or 16 years old. The boys had a bag filled with liter bottles of beer. The girls were drinking lemonade in plastic cups. They were also enjoying vodka with their lemonade. As I watched them, I began to feel compassion for them. I have heard many stories about the adolescent culture here in Hungary, indeed its not just here but around the world. In fact it's the same everywhere it seems. When I returned to the office, I checked the news online from C'ville and saw that NBC29's top story was a C'ville police task force to investigate random attacks by a gang of teens in C'ville. I think about these kids... drinking, getting high, attacking people... made me kinda sad... Then I think about my own heart... I am not judging them... I am hurting for them, they are out of control, aren't we all? Don't we all need the Gospel every day?.

As I walk up the hill from the train, there is this little square with a statue of Mary... she looks down the hill from atop this spire... she's looking down the hill at a primary school... there was a girl pacing back and forth looking for someone... I looked at Mary, she is lit up by a spotlight, and the girl and wondered what the Blessed Virgin (as my Catholic friends might call her) is thinking about the state of the children, the young people... another block on I felt sad for the young people... Then I realized that I was feeling the same compassion for them that the Father has for all His children... I really felt it deep in my soul... His compassion...

I felt it as deeply as I did once long ago when at the coffin of a baby, I saw John 3:16 opened in this tiny little Bible the baby was holding. At that time I felt the deep hurt of a father having lost a child... I knew deeply in my soul a tiny little glimpse of what God had felt when he lost his Son... no, he Gave his Son... for us... for the girl who paces, for the goth guys on the train, for the girls getting drunk from lemonade and vodka, for the homeless men who live in the park at the end of the train line, for the business man who just picked up his two noisy boys from daycare, for the guy yelling random stuff people in a square today, for the teens randomly beating up people in C'ville, for you and most definitely for me... I need His Grace and Mercy more than anyone... we are so broken, I am so broken, I am so glad Jesus came to make us whole...

Then I thanked him for sending Arden to Szeged, Doug and Lea to Vac, Keri and Laci to Vulovar, Mark and Laura to Budapest. And now Joanna, to Budapest, to these kids... then I thought of the parable of the vineyard... the servants had been sent and beaten, so the owner sent his son... him the people killed... God sent his son for us, to us, to die... tonight one of the boys at our friend's house asked Joanna a question about Jonah (the boys were watching 'Vegetales') and I heard her answer the boy, "he (Jonah) was supposed to go tell people about God's love, just like us, that's why we are here" It was a powerful moment for me...

Yeah... we who are followers of Jesus, where ever we are, should tell people along the way that God's love for them is great. And that He will take us just as we are, and I am glad, 'cuz I am broken... but like the hole in the wall in Vukovar, I have been repaired, I may not look like it, but He is not finished with me yet...

Follow Him, just like you are, He will do the repairs... that's what He does.

I'll not be posting again for a few days, I'm off to Ukraine 'till Sunday.