Then there’s the space shuttle. It shakes and ricochets its way back to earth, nearly blown to bits in the end. It reenters Earth’s atmosphere tattered and charred.

For most of the week since El Salvador I’ve felt like Buckminster Fuller. But tonight I was the space shuttle.

Out of nowhere I got mad – really mad – at the audience. They didn’t do anything wrong. It was a completely irrational feeling that came over me. I didn’t say anything inappropriate to them – no finger gestures or four lettered words. I just sang and told my stories as usual, like everything was fine, but it wasn’t fine.

I was angry.

I was angry at the guy checking his watch while I sang asking God to take me from this world and on to one that has no time or worries.

I was angry at the girl, stage left, texting while I told the story of a girl in Kolkata who needed nothing but God in order to be happy.

I felt self-righteous – like I was the one guy in the world with eyeballs. I felt humbled – like there’s nothing I can say or do to make anyone care about the things I care so deeply about. Arrogance and futility: powerful stuff.

I caution bloggers about the dangers of reentry at the end of our trips together. We all handle the process differently. Some people get bored with life at home, failing to sense the same amount of purpose in doing laundry, taxiing kids to soccer practice or shuffling papers around on a desk all day as they’ve experienced in speaking for the voiceless poor all week. Some people get religion, giving and serving more in order to placate guilt or thinking they can get further into God’s good graces. Some people get depressed, overwhelmed by the poverty and darkness they’ve seen, forgetting the hope they encountered along the way.

I get angry. And if I don’t talk about it I burn up.

I get tired of trying to make people care – of telling my stories and singing my songs to people who appear to be unmoved…by everything.

I’m in a hotel room now and the feeling has passed. I’m thankful for the 18 kids who were sponsored, the handful of great conversations I had after the show, the hugs and sincere well-placed words of encouragement. I’m Mr. Fuller again – alive, inspired and passionate, praying I don’t catch on fire tomorrow.

Pray me safely back to Earth, will ya?

On the bus last week I asked Yanci’s mom what that prayer request was all about. “I’ve been praying for him for four years now and I don’t why. I don’t know if God’s already answered my prayers.”

Her face broke into a huge grin as she told me the story through a translator.

Her husband was unable to find work, so he drank a lot. And because he drank a lot he was unable to find work. He didn’t believe in God. He was angry, unhappy, and took it out on his wife and kids.

Then, one day, a neighbor told Yanci’s mom about the Compassion project run out of her church and told her to sign up Yanci and her sister Pamela. She did. For two years Yanci was enrolled in the Compassion program at the church – but without a sponsor. Some time in those two years Yanci, Pamela and their mom began attending church services there too – with their neighbor. They became Christians. But Yanci’s Dad wanted nothing to do with church or God.

Then I became Yanci’s sponsor. We started writing letters back and forth and Yanci asked me to pray for her dad.

Yanci’s neighbor was a pest. She kept telling Yanci’s dad that God could help him. Eventually, just to make her shut up, he went to her church. He went drunk. He went drunk the next time too. And the next. That’s when God answered our prayers. Somehow, through the fog of alcohol, God spoke to him. One Sunday Yanci’s dad gave his life – and his addiction – to God, and he never drank again.

The translator asked Yanci how her dad is different now that he’s a Christian. “He pays attention to me,” she said. “He hugs me-” She leaned into my side, buried her face in her hands and sobbed, unable to say anymore.

Her mother explained that Yanci took most of the abuse. She stood between her dad and her little sister. She stood between her dad and her mom. “She remembers,” her mom said. “Now everything is better but she remembers.”

At the end of the day, Yanci, her Mom and her sister, went back to our hotel to open presents from my family. Her dad, a taxi driver, was coming to pick his family up and to meet me. While we waited a silly string fight broke out somehow. Ok, I started it.

Then her dad arrived.

It was easy to imagine how frightening such a large man could be to a little girl.

But it was impossible to imagine this large man being anything other than kind. He was joyful, proud of his girls, humbled by the patience and love of his wife, thankful for our prayers, boasting on the power of God to change his life.

“People heard that I became Christian and said it wouldn’t last. They said it would be six months. But here I am,” he smiled.

He told me the gangs ask him to pay them every month in order to live safely in “their” neighborhood. They say they’ll kill him, but he still refuses to cooperate. They get enough of his money at work already: 20% of his income goes to the gangs that protect the taxi company he works for.

He told me that his neighborhood is dangerous – people are shot there all the time. “People have been murdered at my front door.”

We stood together by the pool and prayed – all of us holding each other – believing that God answers prayers.

We thanked Him for Yanci, for saving her father. We asked Him for protection and strength.

Then I said good-bye to my family in El Salvador.

You probably know about Compassion International’s Child Sponsorship Program: sponsors like you pay $38 (in the U.S.) to meet the physical and spiritual needs of school-aged kids. And you probably know that Compassion has something they call the Child Survival Program: sponsors like you pay $20 a month to sponsor a project that meets the needs of around 50 pregnant women and pre-school kids. And you probably know that after a child graduates from high school Compassion’s Leadership Development Program allows sponsors like you to pay $300 a month to send a student to University and provide them with physical and spiritual help.

But, you probably don’t know about the very technical sounding Complimentary Intervention Fund – a fund you can give any amount to as often as you’d like. When there is a need that is outside those three well-known Compassion programs, money from the Complimentary Intervention Fund is used. Needs like water purification, disaster relief, major surgery, or electricity for a village. Or, as Guillermo told us, planting corn.

Guillermo is the country director for Compassion in El Salvador. He told us about a small village of fishermen who couldn’t feed their families or pay their bills. It’s hard for a child to learn about math or Jesus when he’s starving and it’s hard to let your child go to school when you need her to earn money. The fishermen, whose kids were in Compassion’s child sponsorship program, had a field and a desire to plant corn. So Compassion dipped into the Complimentary Intervention Fund and gave the fishermen $400 for seed and tools and worked out some kind of deal for paying it back without interest over time. They were enabled to help themselves, so that their children could continue going to school and continue to eat.

The fishermen and their children planted. But they didn’t plant in well-spaced rows. They didn’t plant deeply enough either. Some expert corn farmers inspected their work and told them they’d have to start over. “We can’t afford to start over. We’ll pray instead.”

They prayed.

The corn grew.

Then someone’s cows got into the fishermen’s field. And grazed. And grazed. Until the entire plot was dotted with inch-tall tattered stalks. The expert corn farmers inspected the ruins and told the fishermen they’d have to start over. “We can’t afford to start over. We’ll pray instead.”

They prayed.

The corn grew.

And when it came time to harvest, the expert farmers were amazed to discover that the fishermen’s stalks not only produced corn, but that many of their plants produced two or three ears each. This was seemingly impossible for this particular variety of corn planted so poorly and then gnawed on by a bunch of cows.

“It was a miracle,” Guillermo said.

C.S. Lewis believed that miracles are God doing up close, small and in focus what He’s always doing so large that it goes unnoticed by us. They’re reminders of what God is like and what He’s doing when we aren’t looking. When Jesus turned a little bread into enough bread for five thousand people, for instance, He was doing up close and in focus what God does large and all over the world every day. From two animals he makes numerous offspring. From one star he explodes a galaxy. From one seed he feeds a family.

God gave $400 and some seeds to failed fishermen and their kids. A reminder of grace. God caused plants to grow in spite of their planters’ ineptitude and some hungry cows. A humbling reminder of God’s sovereignty. God caused those plants to yield two to three times “normal.” A reminder of God’s provision.

I’m not God. I can’t make food appear in my refrigerator or steer natural disasters away from my family. My life is truly a miracle. It’s a miracle I can give away to someone who needs one.

Telethons. Thousands donated.

FEMA. Thousands housed.

Hospitals. Thousands healed.

Insurance. Thousands rebuild.

What happens when a hurricane hits a house made of mud?

When earth by the ton gives way and slides through a neighborhood?

When beds, clothes, and families are swallowed up by flood waters and mud?

What happens when all this happens in a small village in the smallest nation in Central America? With almost no government resources? Without insurance and a hospital nearby or a car to visit it? What happens then?

The Church happens.

We drove and drove today to Santa Maria Ostuma, a small village where Compassion International cares for about 200 children through one Compassion project.

I wish Compassion International didn’t use the word “project” so often. I prefer the word “church.” Every Compassion project around the world is a local church. Compassion ministers to children and their families through churches because churches know and are trusted by their neighbors, they’re everywhere, and only churches – only Jesus – can meet both physical and spiritual needs. Compassion is about equipping churches to do just that.

Never has that kind of dual care been more needed than it was today in Santa Maria. Santa Maria’s residents grow their own fruits and vegetables and raise their own animals to eat. When hurricane Ida ripped through the country a few days ago, it’s estimated that 90% of crops were wiped out and almost every animal drowned in Santa Maria. The people now have no source of income, no food, and no transportation to visit a market in the big city. To make matters worse, every resident is without water and electricity too.

When we arrived at the project church this afternoon, dozens of families were waiting to receive bags of food and water. Before caring for their bodies, however, Israel, the pastor of the Compassion church asked if he could feed their spirits first. He read from Hebrews 13.

Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said,
“Never will I leave you;
never will I forsake you.” So we say with confidence,
“The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid.
What can man do to me?”

Then he told them that a life built on the rock of Jesus cannot be shaken no matter what floods come. And all the people said “Amen.”

Then we held each other as Israel prayed for God’s help to come. And it did.

Families formed a line and, one by one, received God’s help: clean water and groceries and prayer.

“I am without hope,” Rosa told me in Spanish, her arms full of groceries. “Please pray for us. God is our only way. Pray for me now, please. Please pray for me!”

We cried together, two strangers turned into family. We pleaded with God to rescue her from hunger and homelessness. We asked God to provide all that she needs. We begged him to show Himself. We asked Him to resurrect Santa Maria with the same power that raised Jesus from the dead. We thanked Him for food and water and for the church. And we asked Him to make every one of you compassionate.

Yes, we prayed for you.

What happens when thousands of blog readers give? Rosa’s prayers get answered.

Visit http://compassion.com/ESflood to give Santa Maria and the rest of El Salvador the life they are praying for. Your money will allow local churches all over the nation to rebuild homes and hearts in Jesus’ name.

Click here to view the embedded video.

She shook her head no.

“Do you know what my job is?” I asked.

“You are a writer?” she guessed through a translator.

“Well, yes,” I said, “but mostly I sing and preach.”

Her eyebrows raised.

“After I visited you four years ago I went back home and started traveling all over America and Canada, to churches and universities, singing and telling people all about the day we spent together.”

She laughed.

“No, I really did!” I said. “I told them how much fun we had together, how beautiful and smart and special you are. I told them all about your family. I showed them your picture.”

Yanci giggled and hid her face behind one hand.

“And then,” I explained, “I asked the people in the audience to sponsor a child. And a lot of people have. All because of you.”

More giggling.

“Sometimes people ask if there are any children as smart and artistic and funny and pretty as you that they can sponsor,” I said with a wink. “And I tell them there’s only one Yanci.”

More giggling.

“I told you. You are very famous.”

If you’ve been a to a concert of mine you’ve probably heard this story. Yanci changed the direction of my life in 2005. I was invited that year to go on a trip with Compassion International, to see if they really were all they claimed to be. Yanci and a translator met me at my hotel, we climbed in a bus and drove to a Compassion project and played for a couple hours.

She laughed at me for butchering the Spanish language. So I retaliated with some vigorous tickling. I pushed her in a swing and spun her around like a top until she got sick and I had to share my Gatorade. She traced my hand in crayon and I traced hers. I walked her around a market with her hand in mine. We shared a rainbow popsicle and I carried her everywhere like she was my own.

A translator told me there was a time when Yanci was hungry but “now she eats every day and her favorite food is chocolate cake.” She told me Yanci wanted to be a teacher and that she did well in school. Yanci sang me a song about Jesus.

Then, on the bus ride back to the hotel, Yanci rested her sweaty head on my chest and arm and fell asleep. There have been few moments in my life in which I’ve been so fully present. I remember looking down at her and knowing I would never be the same. I felt like I was at the top of that first big hill on a giant roller coaster waiting to drop: terrified but fully alive.

This is what I was made for, I thought. Not to make music, but to make life better for children like Yanci.

That’s Yanci’s famous story. It’s the story of one American who was rescued from his poverty by a little girl in El Salvador and given a purpose.

Today I got to say “gracias.”

Coincidence?

Could it be that God, being the loving Father he is, has made enough for every child at his table? But like all children, we have a hard time sharing.

But what if we did share?

What if you shared?

A family far away, at the other end of God’s table, would have enough tomorrow. And so would you.

Our desire is not that others might be relieved while you are hard pressed, but that there might be equality. At the present time your plenty will supply what they need, so that in turn their plenty will supply what you need. Then there will be equality, as it is written: “He who gathered much did not have too much, and he who gathered little did not have too little.” ~2 Corinthians 8:13-15

Please share.

I’ve read a lot of books by theologians about poverty, simplicity and generosity, peace making – about following Jesus. Often theologians take the words of Jesus, parse the original language for us, immerse us in the original cultural context into which the words were first uttered, and then, well, they add their own big ol’ “but” at the end of His sentences.

They tell me that when Jesus said “love your enemies” and “be kind to those who harm you” what he really meant was “Loving your enemies is ideal but…”

When Jesus said “sell your possessions and give to the poor” what he really meant was “Sharing is a good idea for super rich people but..”

And when Jesus said “Take up your cross and follow me” he really meant “If you’d like to obey me and live like I do that’s fantastic but…”

But it’s going to make you look like a nut.

But the government does that for us nowadays.

But it’s impossible for married people with kids.

But it’s too dangerous.

But it’s not possible for you to live that way right now.

Francis Chan disarms obliterates every “but” by filling an entire chapter of Crazy Love with nothing but stories of everyday people following Jesus right now right where you and I live.

I can’t say following Jesus is only for single young people without kids and a mortgage. What about George Mueller?
He and his wife started orphanages in England before orphanages were common. They had two goals, Francis says: “The first was obviously to help the orphans; the second was to show people what it looked like to trust God for everything.” George kept detailed records of their finances so that even today we can see what the needs were, how he and his wife prayed and how God provided. “During his lifetime a million and a half pounds went through George’s hands in the form of donations. He directed every cent toward those in need.”

I can’t say following Jesus is too dangerous. It is dangerous sometimes but what about Brother Yun?
Brother Yun became a Christian at his father’s deathbed and it brought purpose to his own life. He told the story of Jesus all over China, which eventually landed him in a maximum security prison. He was tortured, electrocuted and beaten until crippled. But the God who raised Jesus from the dead raised Yun to his feet and he walked out of the prison on broken legs. “Gates and barriers that were always closed and barred were miraculously opened. No guard tried to stop him; it was as though he were invisible to them.”

I can’t say I’m too old to follow Jesus either. What about Lucy?
Lucy is a former prostitute – now an elderly woman – who still lives in the neighborhood she once worked. She opens her home to pimps, drug dealers, and prostitutes who know that “if you need anything, you can come to Lucy’s house.” This, Francis says is “her way of loving people who are in desperate need of the hope and love that Lucy foudn forty years ago.”

I can’t say I’m too young. What about Jamie Lang?
Jamie was twenty-three when she saved up $2000 to fly to Tanzania. The plan was to stay there until she ran out of cash, but she wound up meeting a mother dying from AIDS, caring for her baby, leading the woman to faith in Jesus, and adopting her child when she died.

I can’t say that this or that is just too nuts to be what Jesus wants from me. What about Cornerstone Community Church?
The church where Francis pastors out in California gives 50% of its budget away because “we believe that when Jesus said to ‘love your neighbor as yourself,’ He wasn’t kidding. If we really want to love our neighbors as ourselves, then it makes sense that we spend at least as much on them as we do on ourselves.” And when they considered a building plan for a beautiful new church sanctuary, they decided to scrap it and build an outside amphitheater instead, saving about $22 million. “I’m sure there will be days when it’s uncomfortable outside, but there will also be joy in knowing that we’re sitting in the cold so that someone else can have a blanket.”

Francis Chan says more in this chapter about what it means to follow Jesus and why we follow Jesus than any theologian I’ve read. These are stories of real people so amazed at and enlivened by God’s love for them that they seem propelled by an unseen Power, unable to refuse a life of following Jesus in crazy, counter-intuitive, and thrilling ways. This is what it looks like when ordinary people just like you and me “surrender all” and live and love whole-heartedly.

Are their lives odd? Yep. Difficult? Absolutely. Uncertain at times? Certainly. They keep living them anyway. And so they silence any “but” that you and I may be holding onto – every excuse, logical argument, stall tactic.

So, what’s your “but”? I bet someone has lived a story that can help you let go of it.

One last thing. I’m on a trip right now with Compassion International in El Salvador (My posts from El Salvador here). We’re visiting kids Compassion educates, feeds, heals and loves in the name of Jesus. But Compassion can only do this if people like you cancel their cable, eat out a little less, lay off the caffeine (or something) and use the savings from these small sacrifices to sponsor a child…or two or ten.

So, I’m asking you to not just be inspired by Francis Chan’s stories but to act on them right now – to act on your faith and love for Jesus Christ. Please sponsor a child today for $38 a month. Can you love like that?

And you’re nervous about it because, well, it’s 200 or so kids versus just little ol’ you…

and you don’t know the language…

and you can’t make balloon animals or juggle…

and you’re wondering to yourself Self, what on earth are you going to do with 200 kids?

Have no fear. There’s always brute force.

Followed by lots and lots of tickling.

I don’t suggest wearing your good shoes to the project at which you exert the brute force and unleash the lots and lots of tickling, however.

Sometimes the little suckers spring a leak.

Kids are kids the whole world over you know? They don’t need much from us big people. A smile. A touch. You can get by without words. Just give them any proof that they matter. They matter enough to be looked in the eyes, held, played with and, yes, wrestled to the floor and tickled to within an inch of their life.

Can you afford to show one child they matter?

I need my blog’s help to remember the date and a few minor details from that trip. But there’s plenty about El Salvador I’ve never shaken from my memory. I remember the houses made of corrugated metal. I remember a woman asking if I wanted her to kill her only chicken to make me lunch. I remember staring out a bus window for miles wondering angrily Why didn’t I know all this existed before now?

Now, four years later, I’m leading a Compassion International trip. For the third time. I’m finally getting the hang of it: specifically, when to explain and teach and when to just shut up and let everyone else experience the third world for themselves. Without interruption or interpretation.

I did a lot of shutting up today.

I stared out a bus window and remembered what it was like to see El Salvador for the first time. Beautiful green grass – possibly stolen from Ireland – outlined by rusting homes and coffee plantations.

I listened to bloggers gasp in the seats behind me at the damage left in hurricane Ida’s wake two days ago and wonder out loud what it would be like to lose everything so easily.

I took it all in. Ancient trees uprooted. Rivers brimming. Mud sliding on pavement.

The Compassion International office in San Salvador. New and much expanded over the last four years. A sign of growth – now serving the physical and spiritual needs of 35,000 kids – with room for more.

Stacks of letters from sponsors and the same lecture I heard years ago about how important letters are to children.

I looked around the bus today at one point and felt simultaneously sorry and thrilled for the bloggers staring out windows taking pictures.

There is so much they will never forget about this place.

And if they do, there’s always that handy dandy search function.