Introduction

Several years ago, my wife Vicky and I heard about a new ministry outreach to street kids in the Philippines called Face the Children (FTC). During the initial fundraising banquet, we listened to Jeff Pessina, the leader of Philippine Frontline Ministries, share stories of street kids he intersected with and those stories broke our hearts. Since then I have been blessed to have taken more than a dozen trips to the FTC facilities in the Philippines, many with my wife, my kids and their friends, good friends from my church; as well as have the opportunity to work alongside my business partners to establish and grow a missional business in the center of the city that Philippine Frontline calls home.

On each of theses dozen plus trips, I have prioritized spending time both with kids in the FTC program, as well as kids living on the streets who are unwilling to come into the program. I expected to use my love and passion for kids as well as my years of parenting experience to really have an impact in the lives of those kids, and I expected to feel fulfilled from my investment in them. While I have had a positive influence on many of those kids over the years, those experiences have really caused me to question my faith – and not in the ways you might think. Most people expect I would question how a loving God could allow terrible things like kids living on the streets; however, having been raised by a father who has two doctoral degrees, one in the philosophy of science, I had already wrestled with those kinds of questions long before coming to the Philippines, and I have come to logical conclusions on those questions; conclusions that do not contradict my beliefs and understandings about God and the world we find ourselves in.

After a few initial experiences with abused, abandoned, and dangerously neglected kids, I realized that they needed a message of hope and encouragement. I couldn’t think of anything more encouraging than Ephesians 2:10 – “For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.” Explaining to hurting kids that God created them to be masterpieces, and that they have important work to do that has been commissioned by God before they were even born, was always received warmly and with a smile. I was surprised at how it made ME feel when I would explain this to the kids – deep down I felt disingenuous. While I believed Ephesians 2:10 philosophically, I didn’t believe in it realistically. God’s spirit was convicting me that I really didn’t believe Ephesians 2:10. I didn’t believe it for myself, for my wife, for my own kids, for the kids in the youth groups I led, the other families in my small groups I attended, etc. I desperately wanted to believe it for the street kids; but I realized that if I really believed it myself, my daily life would look a lot different than it currently did. I quickly began to feel like a hypocrite.

I had two choices: first, to abandon Ephesians 2:10 and find some other ways to encourage the street kids, or second, to begin a life-long journey of trying to believe Ephesians 2:10 in my life, in the lives of my close relationships and casual acquaintances. If I did that, I would have the integrity I needed to envision people I didn’t know very well, with the Ephesians 2:10 message. I chose the to start the Ephesians 2:10 journey back in 2006 and I have found it to be a difficult journey. You have to consistently believe the best about yourself and others close to and far from you, want the best for them, and take initiative to envision, plant and cultivate the best in them and in yourslef, which sometimes means weeding out things that choke out and destroy the best. You have to hold these beliefs in spite of the day to day realities of selfishness, pride, failure, and the tendency to favor the good at the expense of the best, both in your own life and in the lives of others.

I have struggled to make progress on this journey, and sometimes it feels like I have taken two steps backward for every one step I take forward. But I believe that most people, if not everyone in the world, is waiting for someone to unleash the masterpiece that each individual desperately hopes is inside of them. I believe the future of the Christian church is closely tied to the envisioning of Ephesians 2:10, and all of the related fallout from making that vision a reality. This fallout includes outreach to the poor, the fight for social justice, and following Jesus. Please check out the about us page and check back for more about the journey of living out Ephesians 2:10.