A focus on the good of this world: Thank you, Samaritan's Purse, SIM, and Doctors Without Borders.

Samaritan's Purse workers spray disinfectant on the dead body of an Ebola victim (Source: CBS News)

With so much sickness and evil happening throughout the world right now, I wanted to say a sincere, huge THANK YOU to Samaritan's Purse, SIM, and Doctors Without Borders. These charitable organizations and the people who serve with them have been the main people in Western Africa during this unprecedented Ebola outbreak over the past 8 months. They became involved in the critical care and containment of Ebola patients because the rest of the world was absent and no one else was there to help.

Now, with two American missionaries still in isolation, and the disease still spreading, the international community is paying attention. May God bless these medical missionaries who live off of the support of others, daily putting their lives at risk, far from home, and now enduring criticism from some people in the Western world as they endure an already hellish environment.

Thank you to these many unknown people who clearly demonstrate the love of Christ when no one else will get involved or care. Thank you to these people who hold the hands of the dying each day and carry their bodies out to be buried safely. Thank you to these people who face death bravely each time they put on their suits and gloves, having to disinfect their entire bodies each time they exit the containment units, and go home wondering if they hadn't been cautious enough.

And when they face scorn from millionaires and billionaires sitting in their comfortable homes, writing annoying twitter remarks and incredible posts about their 'idiocy,' may they rejoice and count it all joy that they bear the marks of Christ's own death on their bodies and, as they suffer with him, most assuredly they will receive a great reward in heaven.

"For Christ’s love compels us..." -2 Corinthians 5:14

Much more can still be done to help from our home front. Monetary donations are critical to provide the protective equipment and basic medical supplies needed to save people's lives and stop infection in Africa and throughout our world. 

Pray: Slander of Ebola-stricken missionaries & Iraqi Christians facing incomprehensible persecution

Source: CNN

The evil of this world is overwhelming. I cannot believe the hate being directed at an Ebola stricken missionary and his Christ-like love for the Liberian people... God forgive these people and their words, they know not what they do. 

And the news of persecution and murder of Christians coming out of Iraq is awful. The IS (Islamic State) is now instilling terror by beheading Christian children. Lord, help us and may we not sit idly by.

Pray for these dark places and pray for the hate in our selfish hearts.

See:

Leader: ISIS is ‘Systematically Beheading Children' in 'Christian Genocide'

Giving Opportunity: S.I.M. Ebola Outbreak Project

Nations suffering from Ebola outbreak (Source: Mashable.com)

One key way to stop the spread of Ebola in Africa and to help from our homes in the U.S. is to donate generously our financial resources to these developing nations. I posted a few days ago on how to donate through Samaritan's Purse, which has been on the ground in Liberia since the start of this current Ebola outbreak and has been overseeing one of the only operating Ebola wards in Liberia. Dr. Kent Brantly was the medical director of this operation and is now battling the virus himself.

Another partner organization on the ground in West Africa is SIM, a Christian missionary organization whose motto is "respond to need, proclaim the Gospel, equip the Church." Nancy Writebol, the second American to be infected by Ebola, has been working with SIM in Liberia as a missionary.

You can donate through SIM's website by visiting their Giving page and searching for project keyword, Ebola. This will bring up two current projects to give to: Ebola 2014 Missionary Assistance or Ebola Outbreak- West Africa.

Pray: For the Churches of West Africa

Liberian Christians hold Holy Communion with protective gloves (Source: European Pressphoto Agency)

Liberian children washing their hands before entering a church service (Source: European Pressphoto Agency)

Ebola Isolation Unit in Liberia (Source: ELWA Ministries)

Liberian Christians pray for the end of Ebola (Source: European Pressphoto Agency)

Please continue to pray for those in West Africa who are dealing with the deadly Ebola virus firsthand. Pray for the churches in these infected areas to not have a spirit of fear, but to boldly proclaim the good news of Jesus during this crisis.

I was reading Psalm 88 yesterday and it felt like someone from an Ebola unit could have written it. Please pray for those who have the virus and do not have the modern healthcare that we do.

"Lord, you are the God who saves me;
day and night I cry out to you.
May my prayer come before you;
turn your ear to my cry.

I am overwhelmed with troubles
and my life draws near to death.

I am counted among those who go down to the pit;
I am like one without strength.
I am set apart with the dead,
like the slain who lie in the grave,
whom you remember no more,
who are cut off from your care.

You have put me in the lowest pit,
in the darkest depths.
Your wrath lies heavily on me;
you have overwhelmed me with all your waves.

You have taken from me my closest friends
and have made me repulsive to them.
I am confined and cannot escape;
my eyes are dim with grief. 

I call to you, Lord, every day;
I spread out my hands to you." 

Psalm 88:1-9

"We are confident in our faith that God is sovereign and 'works all things together for good to those that love Him, who are called according to His purpose. We serve a God of great mercy, grace and redemptive power, and we look forward to witnessing our God at work in the midst of this seeming disaster." Dr. Kent Brantly, April 2014

Our spiritual Ebola

I believe that God often uses our physical world to mirror spiritual realities. When I see the fear and death surrounding the massive Ebola outbreak in West Africa, with the quarantined patients and the medical professionals in alien-like protective suits, fighting an often deadly disease with no known cure, I think of our spiritual Ebola.

It's a far deadlier disease that has contaminated us all, leaving us completely alone and quarantined in our desperate condition. And yet, a physical disease strikes more fear in us than the spiritual disease we already are dying from. We fear an Ebola outbreak coming to our country, meanwhile we are completely unaware of our own spiritual death.

One day, God will come to us in His holiness, unable to touch us in our sin, and will cast us out into eternal separation from him. He is the doctor, clean and wearing a protective suit. We are the sick, unclean, untouchable, dying. We will burn in our contamination, still contagious even in our death. Unless, of course, we take His medicine. The only cure is the vaccine of His Son, who, on our behalf, walked into the Ebola ward without any suit, suffered the death of an Ebola patient, and conquered the feared disease.

We now have no fear of death, those who reside with Jesus, the Great Cure. But healing exists only for those of us who wake up to the reality that an outbreak much worse than Ebola lies within our very hearts, and we have much more to fear than physical death.

"The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge." Proverbs 1:7a

Pray: American Missionaries Infected with Ebola, Kent Brantly and Nancy Writebol

“We are grateful that Kent Brantly and Nancy Writebol made it through the night. They remain in serious condition." - Samaritan’s Purse President, Franklin Graham, August 1, 2014

Dr. Kent Brantly, medical director for the Samaritan’s Purse
Ebola Consolidated Case Management Center in Monrovia
(Source: Samaritan's Purse)

Missionary Nancy Writebol, pictured with her husband
(Source: Samaritan's Purse)

Please pray for these two missionaries from the United States who are fighting for their lives. Dr. Kent Brantly and Nancy Writebol, medical missionaries through Samaritan's Purse, are both suffering from the Ebola virus that they contracted while caring for Liberian patients. There is no known cure, but an experimental serum arrived (enough for one person) and Brantly requested it to be given to Writebol. 

A fourteen year old Liberian boy, who Dr. Brantly helped care for while suffering from Ebola, donated his blood to help the now stricken doctor.

Pray for the whole situation and for full healing to come to these two missionaries, as well as the entire infected area in West Africa.

From 1976-2008, 1503 people died in remote parts of Africa from Ebola. In the past week, more than 700 people have died.

If you'd like to donate money towards Samaritan's Purse and their Ebola program, please see my previous post on giving.

Giving opportunity: Ebola outbreak

Dr. Kent Brantly caring for an Ebola patient before he tested positive himself for the virus. Source: Samaritan's Purse

More than 700 people have died in a week's time due to the deadly Ebola outbreak in West Africa. This highly infectious disease has a survival rate of 10% in some of the remote African villages throughout Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea, where little is known about the disease and how it spreads. Samaritan's Purse has deployed over a dozen medical professionals in Liberia where they are operating the only medical facilities in the entire country that are properly equipped to care for Ebola victims.

Ebola outbreak as of 7/31/14.

Ebola has no cure and spreads from the bodily secretions of an infected person, however it is not airborne. The doctors and nurses working for Samaritan's Purse put their own lives in danger each time they enter the Ebola ward to care for patients. They must wear protective suits, goggles, and double gloves in the African heat and then go through multiple chlorine showers after their shift.

Please pray for the medical team that is risking so much of their own livelihood in order to help the sick and dying in Jesus' name. Pray also for the untold misery of thousands who are experiencing pain and death, "an epidemic straight from hell," as one doctor described it. Pray for the two American medical staff, Dr. Kent Brantly and Nancy Writebol, who've been infected and are fighting for their lives today. Pray that the disease would be contained and that the resources needed to fight the epidemic would be provided. Give generously, Christian Church of the West, to those suffering terribly in West Africa.

For more information on the Ebola outbreak and how you can help, visit the Samaritan's Purse website and donate Ebola Crisis Response.

"'I was sick, and you took care of me... Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.'" -Matthew 25:36;40