We are both so honored to begin our season of leading Pure & Faultless as its new executive directors!

Who isn’t in awe of what the Lord has done already in this short amount of time? So far, we have mobilized people and finances to be the hands and feet of Jesus to their broken world, however that looks.

As a couple that has lived on the mission field in two other continents and has adopted from three foreign countries, we have seen a facet of humanity that many Americans haven’t seen and perhaps never will.

Imagine a world where a young girl gets abused more often than you receive emails.

Or parents send their eight-year-old son to beg on the streets during the day and sleep on a square of cardboard at night.

Or a mother abandons her newborn in a field because she cannot take care of it.

Meanwhile, back at the American ranch…

I (Anthony) received an email from an old golfing buddy today. It was a video of a golf cart that flew like a jet pack. The narrator in the ad said, “Get to your ball quicker. Get a bigger perspective of the course so you can play better.” I wrote back to my friend, “That takes laziness to a new ‘height.’”

Or how about what my wife treated me to just last week? I’m a man. I didn’t know that men get pedicures. “Oh, sure they do!” Adéye said. So I pocketed the gift certificate I got for Father’s Day and drove in my non-jet pack car to V Nail Salon (don’t ask me what that means).

I took three deep breaths before I opened the door, knowing that I’d see other husbands there as my wife PROMISED. And there it was. A line of massage chairs, I reckon there were about 450 of them, with all women getting their feet worked on. Before I could dart out, a sweet Asian lady yelled so that everyone could hear, “Come in, come in! Here’s a seat for you!”

She pointed to the only available chair smack dab in the middle of the voluminous row of chairs. As I sank very low down in the seat (as if that helped), she asked, “You want wine?” Surely, she’s not serious.

Soon, my feet were soaked, oiled, massaged, smacked, clipped, filed, sanded, and sawed. I left there hobbling because it felt so good, supposedly.

The title of an old DC Talk song kept coming to my mind: “What Have We Become?”
I will never forget meeting someone in Richmond, Virginia, the day after my first day back from years on the mission field. He asked me how I was adjusting to American culture. I told him I felt a bit spoiled, like all that we have as a nation is overkill. “No, he said. It’s because we’re blessed as a nation.”

Hmm. That changed my thinking. Maybe we are. But then I thought, if we’re blessed, surely we shouldn’t be spoiled. Sometimes when I feel spoiled, I feel guilty for having so much of something. But there’s another sense of the word—when I begin to feel entitled to that thing and want more in the future.

I love the Amplified Bible version of Genesis 12:2 in which God addresses Abram with a promise that carried through to Israel:
And I will make you a great nation,
And I will bless you [abundantly],
And make your name great (exalted, distinguished);
And you shall be a blessing [a source of great good to others].

And, and, and, and. Count them—four. It’s as if God was getting excited and couldn’t wait to get to the climax—“And you shall be a blessing!” Hurray!

If our name, Pure & Faultless, ever becomes great, Lord, may it be for the sole purpose of leading to the next step—to be a source of great good to others. To be a blessing to those who so desperately need YOU.

May our great name reflect the name above all names—JESUS.

May our hands and feet take us to places and to people who don’t know You.

aaaaMay any abundance you shower on us, whether financial or material resources or via people with whom we connect, be poured out to those who have no safety, no family, no hope, and no dreams…so that we can be a blessing!