Engaging & Mentoring
Last month, I spent a week on the International Campus of ECHO, Education Concern for Hunger Organization, in North Fort Myers, FL. On the day I arrived, I did a seminar for the agricultural interns and staff focusing on the biblical mandate for creation care. I spent the rest of the week with the interns; working alongside them on the research farm, sharing meals with them, and interacting with them during the evenings. It was a time of getting to know them, listening to their concerns and pointing them toward future opportunities to serve Jesus.
They had the same questions I had when I was an intern 14 years ago! Questions such as: "Where do I go when my internship is done?", or "How can I use my agricultural skills and knowledge to benefit God's Kingdom?" One young man was passionate about environmental conservation but felt weighed down by the human pain and suffering he had seen in some of the places he had visited. "Are caring for both of these two things diametrically opposed?" he wondered out loud. I pointed him the to Scriptures that God cares for ALL of His creation, human and non-human. Our responsibility is to care for ALL of creation and to help it ALL flourish, not only one or the other, or one at the expense of the other.
I also spoke with a veteran missionary working in the mountains of Indonesia who has been looking for an organization such as TEAM that will come along side him in his efforts to plant churches through Creation Care efforts. I am excited to see what comes of this possibility.
Conversations such as these were highlights of my time at ECHO. I really enjoyed engaging the interns and missionaries and mentoring them in their desire to steward God's creation. I pray my time in FL will bear fruit for the Kingdom. I may never see the fruit of this visit on this side of Heaven, but I have learned it is always worth investing in people and pointing them to Jesus.
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