Love and Ministry

I’ve spent the past few months teaching ESL to a group of Mexican migrant workers. And next to homeschooling my children, I would say it is the most rewarding work I have ever done. But it’s not just because I love to teach English.

Of course I’m proud of how much our students have learned in such a short time. But I am also haunted by the reality that what I am teaching them is unlikely to affect the hardship of their lives.

You see, these migrant workers are competent, intelligent men. We have ex-office administrators, construction workers, carpenters and fishermen. Men who once held good jobs, but who can no longer find work in their own country. So they come here. And they work in our greenhouses, clipping leaves and harvesting tomatoes. Six days, fifty-eight hours a week.

And lately, they have been choosing to spend most of that precious seventh day with us—a ministry outreach. Every other Sunday we have gathered the men from their various houses across Surrey, Richmond and Delta, and taken them to a park. They visit, play soccer, have a barbequed dinner, and hear the Word of God from our Spanish pastor.

It has been fascinating and rewarding for me to see the transformation in these men. When we began, they would look down when we spoke to them. They would choose to sit on the ground rather than sit beside us. It was often awkward, neither group knowing what to expect, and each slightly suspicious of the other. Now, we have built a delicate bridge of trust. The men look us in the eye when they talk. They will sit with us, communicating half with gestures, and half with a Spanish/English dictionary, and tell us about themselves, their families, their home. They laugh. We laugh. There is something genuine in the connection that I want to call friendship, despite our knowing very little about each another.

Maybe it isn’t quite friendship, but there is something—some intangible connection that was not simply purchased with food or English lessons. There is something that came from our hearts, and has been returned from theirs.

It makes me think of those certain people in the church who demonstrate such great warmth with a look or a handshake. Their demonstration of love is intuitive and intentional. They make us feel welcome and wanted. They are often considered the “people persons” of the church, the ones who are outgoing by nature. But it is more than that. It is a ministry. Their love is deliberate, the result of a genuine desire to care for others for Christ’s sake and glory.

My last blog was a paraphrase of 1 Corinthians 13, the famous passage about love. We often hear it at weddings, but I think it is really about ministry. Whether we are teaching English or handing out hot dogs, it matters whether or not we care.

Better a meal of vegetables where there is love than a fattened calf with hatred. Proverbs 15:17

If anyone says, "I love God," yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. 1 John 4:20