On my way to church today, I was praying and I started thinking... I was thinking about the trip to Sonoqui Village yesterday and all of the people I got to see and meet. I remember the lady with 3 kids in the wading pool that was shocked the food was for her as she said in her cute little Spanish accent, "For me?". I remember the sweet little girl that smiled like Rosa Linda from the orphanage with her cute little gum smile with barely the top of her teeth showing. I remember how her family lived with 2 other families in that home - a total of 12 people, half kids and half adults. I remember going up to the nicest trailer there with 2 brand new cars outside and how the elderly man said, "No, I don't need any food" and then closed the door suddenly afterward. I remember these people.

I look at our church, and I am so thankful that we try to minister as much as we can. I look at the ministries and for a moment, I am proud. I am proud to be a soon member of a church that focuses and strives to love in areas of children, worship, women's, men's, biker, missions, and outreaches to the poor.

Yet, in that moment, I felt a tugging. I felt an urgency that I have never felt before.

I began thinking about all the riches that surround Sonoqui Village. The enormously huge houses and the type of people that must live there. The people that probably have no or little material need.

God then reminded me of a verse that He alone spoke when He was here. "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to go to heaven."

Wow. How we have all neglected these people. I think of the verses where it warns not to give a better seat to the rich man than to the poor man... to not show them favoritism in that way. Yet, I by no means think that that verse or the others like it mean that we should neglect them.

I have caught myself lately at times where I tend to be more polite and courteous to people of Hispanic ethnicity. Preferring people over others is just as much racism as treating other people worse for that same reason. For that I am guilty and I am trying to change. I think the church as a whole is as guilty of the same thing when it comes to the different "classes" of people. We focus on the poor. We realize that it's the "middle class" that is going to keep the church going and maybe even be where most of the members fall into.

It is when people are poor and at their low point where they depend on God and they realize it's only Him that can sustain them and keep them going. It's the poor that realize that God has given them every good and perfect thing that they have.

Yet the rich... they give credit to themselves. They are the only people that God says, "it's hard for them to get into heaven." They have the toughest road ahead of them in order to get to heaven. They have the most hurdles in their race to God and to be like Him.

I started thinking... Wow God, what would a ministry to the rich look like? What could we possibly do to reach out to them? If we took the extra bags of food into one of their neighborhoods yesterday, what would their response be?

"Why would you be bringing me food?"

"Shouldn't you be giving food to the poor, not to people in this neighborhood?"

What if we then challenged them... "Well, if you think they need it, would you be willing to give it to a poor person or family?" "Can you give it to someone for me instead?"

What would their reaction be to that? Could some simple challenge teach them more than simply giving them something?

I continue to think about it as it is so overwhelming in my head and I can't stop playing detective to figure out what to do from here. Ian had a great message today, and I paid attention as much as I could, but I kept wanting to say, "What about the rich?" "What about the people we are neglecting the most?"

We know that evil people are obviously wrong. Some secretly hope that Hitler never got saved before he died. Some hope the same for Osama bin Laden and all the others that we hear about. Yet, what about those neglected people that seem to be so blessed on the outside and seem to be so nice and polite but have a future of doom ahead of them?

What about them?