Over the past few years, God has blessed me to be able to travel outside of our country to experience cultures who, in many areas, are vastly poorer than we are in the United States. Honestly, we would be hard pressed to travel to a place that is wealthier than the US. We are so immeasurably blessed in our country. So much so that we don’t often feel hunger pains, the dangers of the cold, nor the lack of medical attention. Yet, study after study shows a rise in anxiety, depression, and overall unhappiness. It leaves me often asking what in the world is going on here?! Every time I visit another culture, I always come back a little more disappointed in ours.
My first missions trip outside of the country was to San Pedro Sula, Honduras. There is a ministry there called Brazos de Jesus, The Arms of Jesus. Brazos is a school that serves the poorest families in Honduras. In Honduras the public school system isn’t set up like ours, it costs quite a bit of money for government schooling, and it is lacking it its quality as well. The families and children Brazos serves are families who literally live in the city dump. They find materials from the dump to build homes, often on the garbage heaps themselves. They scavenge the dump for food and drink to sustain them, and they fill large bags of recyclables to make money. They can fill around one of these massive bags per day and they receive about 6 dollars per bag. They live in utter poverty. The children have no possibility of school or even the capacity to dream of a brighter future. That’s where Brazos steps in as the arms of Jesus.
Brazos De Jesus is a school that takes the kids from the dump and educates them, clothes them, cleans them up, and feeds them. The do all of that while teaching the kids about Jesus and discipling them in scripture, as well as teaching them life skills to provide a life changing holistic education. All of this, they do at no charge to the families in the dump. The only stipulation the families have to agree to is to not allow the kids to work in the dump hunting recyclables. As you can imagine, it is wildly dangerous to their health, on top of the careless heavy machine operators who see the families in the dump as less than human. Brazos and their teachers, nurses, and administration are literally redeeming a generation for Jesus there in Honduras.
Again, it’s hard for me to describe the poverty level of the families we met in San Pedro Sula, but here’s what really blew me away. They seemed to have joy. Even our presence there lit their faces with excitement. When we brought just a little bit of food to the dump, their faces lit up with the most amazing smiles. We watched them play and interact with each other, and even the adults seemed unburdened by their poverty. I remember thinking, “These people seem happier than your average church crowd, let alone the people we meet on a daily basis.” The people living in a dump reminded this American pastor what it looked like to have the joy of the Lord even in circumstances that seemed completely dire. It was a convicting experience in the lives of everyone who went on our trip.
The second time I left the country was this past September. I had the pleasure of traveling to a mission field that I had heard about since I was a toddler, Papua New Guinea. I’ve heard missionaries, pastors, and church leaders describe the nature of the poverty of PNG, but until you personally experience something like that, you can never grasp it fully. I will be honest; PNG is one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. It is an island just north of Australia in the southwest Pacific. There are a few places considered cities, but truthfully there is only one city in the country, its capital Port Morseby. Because of the terrain, the only way to get to Port Morseby is by plane. It’s almost like the rest of the country is cut off. The people outside of the city and little towns live in traditional grass huts, bathe in the creeks or rivers, and garden for their food sources, and collect rainwater to survive.
Despite what we would consider their poverty, the people of Papua New Guinea were some of the most generous and honoring people I have ever met. The first day we arrived in the bush in the province of Montanda, where we would be staying with our missionary family, the village people presented us with a gift of a cooked pig. That pig would have sold for 300-500 Kina, which is around $80-120 for us. Now that doesn’t sound like much, but to them that is a very large sum. People who had next to nothing, sacrificed what they did have of value to feed foreign visitors, another convicting moment for this pastor in the most prosperous nation on the globe.
The generosity and the display of joy and affection of the people didn’t stop in Montanda but continued throughout our stay and our ministry every place we went. As we drove around the country, which was a slow and painstaking task, we were treated like the Pope. Even non-believers would light up with a smile and wave at our car as we drove through their little village gathering areas. It really made me wonder what it would take for us to be that happy to see each other in our daily lives. Or even what kind of workplace would it be if we all greeted each other with excitement and a smile? How would our relationships look if we looked for ways to bless and serve each other?
We visited PNG primarily to speak at our national denominational camp meeting, which was an absolute honor. The kindness we received deeply affected all of us who made the trip. The PNG denominational leaders were concerned about camp attendance prior to the start of the services due to the tough economic climate in an already impoverished country. It was going to cost 50 Kina per adult to attend the camp and stay on the grounds, so they didn’t expect a great crowd. Let alone arranging the travel to the camp for each church and family, there was reason for concern. Boy, were they wrong! Over 1,000 men, women, and children packed the largest tent that I have ever seen, and we had one of the most powerful encampments that I have been a part of! The Holy Spirit moved in such a way that by the end of the week, every national leader agreed this camp was a catalyst for revival among our churches and a season of greater church planting in unreached villages! In the weeks since, we have heard wonderful testimony of full churches, evangelism going to villages to start new church works, and souls coming to Christ.
The first night of the camp my friend Gary preached a message that set the tone for the entire encampment and the response of the people again convicted this American Pastor’s heart. The message was titled “What’s in your Hand.” I’ll be honest, as he got underway talking about God talking to Moses about the staff in his hand, I knew where the message was going. It was going to be a challenge to the people of PNG to give God whatever they had with their treasure, time, or talent. As the message unfolded, I knew this was a great message for America, where we all have so much stuff, we are prosperous, and we are some of the most skilled and educated people on the planet. But we were in one of the poorest areas of the Earth talking to people who had very little, if any, treasures. I just didn’t know how the response would be.
As the message concluded, through an interpreter who had been a missionary in PNG for 20 years, Gary gave the challenge for all in attendance to surrender whatever was in their hand, whatever they had in time, treasure, or talent, to the will of God in their lives and the lives of the churches in PNG. Immediately, men, women and children began making their way to the altar in front of our stage. They were praying loudly in total surrender of their lives and whatever it was that God was dealing with them. It was one of the most moving, Spirit-filled moments I have been a part of in my life. Those who have nothing in comparison to our culture, were giving everything they had to the will and work of God.
In PNG, the men and women who can get through the higher levels of the school system will often leave the villages for a job so they can send money back to support the village. Throughout the week, we heard testimony after testimony from people who had high level jobs who had committed to better support the work of the church and the evangelistic call of our churches to reach unreached villages of Papua New Guinea. My favorite testimony from the week was from one of these community supporters. She testified about how once she started working, she drifted away from the church, her village, and the Lord. She spoke of a renewed relationship with Jesus and a great desire to see her region reached for Christ.
The testimony that will stick with me for some time was translated like this: “We don’t have many Christians in our area, because when the missionaries first showed up, we would kill and eat them. But because of this week, and what God’s doing in my heart, I want to support our church and new works to bring Jesus to my province!” I asked our translator how long ago they were eating and killing missionaries. He replied, “Not as long as you’d think.” Wow, what a turnaround in a country, that in the 1960’s, that was completely lost, to now as of October 2025, they have ratified their country’s constitution and declared that Papua New Guinea is a Christian nation.
Here is my hope in sharing my experience with these two different cultures; that we in America rediscover our joy of the Lord, our generous spirit, and our ability to surrender all that’s in our hands for God’s will in our lives. The world defines prosperity by material wealth, global influence, and overall standard of living. With that definition, we live in the most prosperous nation in the history of the world. Yet, the National Institute of Mental health published a study in 2022 [1] that said 23.1% of Americans struggle mentally with depression, anxiety, or other mental health diagnosis. How can we live in such a historically prosperous nation and almost ¼ of Americans be dealing with a mental health crisis? Without getting too much in the weeds, here’s what I have discovered in my life and ministry. What we try to possess, usually ends up possessing us.
The more stuff we amass, the more we come to realize that the possessions don’t really fill us with that much joy. On top of that, we must work ourselves to the bone to pay for them. That really reduces the time and energy we have for Jesus, family, and answering the call that God has for us. Satan has us telling ourselves that we are providing for our families, when really, we spend our lives trying to live in luxuries that the culture tells us we need, or that we deserve! Then little by little, our anxiety flairs up and our frustration begins to boil. We can never put a finger on why we feel so unfulfilled. We are unhappy, unconnected, ungenerous, and ultimately lonely and sad despite the mountains of possessions around us.
The University of Toledo released a study on how many toys our children should have to produce the right kind of development and joy.[2] That number was FOUR! When they have more than four, they have less engagement, imagination, and creativity. If you’re anything like my wife and me, sometimes your kid’s rooms are so inundated with toys that you walk through paths carved out in mounds of toys and clothes to try to get them up for school. We have unknowingly entrapped our kids in the culture of the amount possessions becoming our measuring stick, while everything Jesus taught, and science is telling us, and instructs us to do the opposite.
So, I found myself, outside of our borders, in cultures and climates where the people, in comparison to ours, are wildly impoverished and poor. When I visited those cultures that were supposed to be less prosperous than ours, I was convicted and changed by the fullness of their joy and generosity, and I have resolved in my heart that I won’t allow my material possessions to get in the way of my relationship with Jesus or with those He has called me to reach. That’s why Jesus began His Sermon on the Mount with this:
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Matthew 3:5 ESV.
May we as American Christians take survey of what Jesus has called us to, the surrender necessary to become His disciples, and declutter our lives of the possessions that bring only temporal momentary luxury. Let’s shake off the shackles of the pursuit of the material and commit ourselves to building a life focused on building the Kingdom of God. This is where we will rediscover the joy of our salvation, as David put it. That’s when we will truly experience the freedom that Jesus promises in His Spirit. Then, maybe we can light up a room with our smiles, be generous with the blessings of the Lord, and rekindle our desire to see God move in our country!
[1] https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/mental-illness?utm_
