*Labor Shortage, Help Wanted*

Matthew 9:35-38

“And Jesus went throughout all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction. ³⁶ When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. ³⁷ Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; ³⁸ therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”

The entirety of this passage is very short, making it easy to glaze over as I had done many times before. It was not until I read commentary on this small passage that caused everything to click into place for me, revealing how profound and sad this passage truly is.

Here we see that Jesus is doing his usual Jesus things of healing the sick, teaching etc, nothing out of the ordinary. When he comes across these crowds, however, he has compassion for them as they are in a pitiful state. Jesus is here with his crack team of disciples and instead of deciding on who to start praying for, giving orders to his various disciples, or anything of the like, we see the mighty Jesus turn to his disciples and tell them to “pray earnestly to the Lord” that he might send out laborers into this harvest.

Jesus and the 12 disciples are asking the Lord to send backup…

Unfortunately this passage is no less true nearly 2,000 years later. The Harvest is plentiful and the Laborers are few and far between. The organization I am working with, One Way Community, has started brand new ministry sites in two locations this month and already we are receiving between 100-200 kids on any given day and this is only the first week! We go into these communities with around 10 Laborers, give it our all, and return back broken, beaten and scarred, figuratively and sometimes literally.

Even if we arrived at these communities to only 1 child, that child is a child of God that he would leave the 99 just to bring them back into his fold. It makes it all the more real when we are dealing with kids in the triple digits. 

Many of these kids have already found their way permanently into my heart through there innocence, joy, and selflessness; all but ensuring that leaving Guatemala is going to be a painful endeavor. 

I have seen first hand the need for the laborers and unfortunately once my team pulls out the need will still be there and still be growing.

Ultimately, all I can really do is my small part and what Jesus suggested when he was confronted by the vast crowds (of children). Pray to the Lord that Laborers would be sent into his harvest…