Showing the Father's Love

At some churches, good fathers are abundant. At Impact, many young men and women have voids in their souls where that father figure should have been. Some children grow up not knowing who their father was. Others only get to see them occasionally. Some fathers have other families, others are always at work, some are locked away, and still others who fall to their vices are only around to make appearances. They may be there physically, but the man that needs to be there is absent.

Alfredo Mendez was one of those tragic examples. After living his own life, rising and crashing repeatedly due to addictions and poor choices, Alfredo encountered Christ and woke up. At that point, he had reached the bottom. As reality came into focus, he found himself estranged to adult children with families of their own. They would have nothing to do with him. But then, what did he have to offer? Nothing.

So what is different now? Alfredo still lives in a shack and works hard for a very little. But there is something that has changed in Alfredo. Jesus. The shack he lives in is on Impact property so that he can be readily available for any need of the church. The work he does is for a Christian family that led him to Christ. They don’t pay a whole lot, but Alfredo wants to be around them as well. His hours are flexible so that he can be able to work for Impact as well. His greatest passion is what he has found in his service to Christ

The niche that Alfredo has found is in rediscovering a new kind of fatherhood. In a way he has adopted the young people of the church. Throughout the Fall and Spring semesters of the Bible Institute, Alfredo did everything he could to pick up three to six young people every Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday and take them to evening Bible classes. All of these kids are in great need of a father figure and hero in their lives. Someone who really cares for them today, and cares for their future. These young people know that Alfredo loves them. He loves them unconditionally. He loves them as he is loved, by his heavenly Father. His greatest desire is not that the young men and women that he is helping see him as anything special. His only desire is that they know his Father’s love.

The Father's love is emitted through the heart of Alfredo. The kids he encourages can see it, and others can see it. Even his own family can now finally see it and God has been at work in the mending of those broken relationships. To Alfredo, reconciliation with his family is miraculous. But that is what Our Father wants to do: the impossible. Our Father is present. Our Father is good. Our Father fills any void that might have been, and is in our lives. All we can do is humbly accept His love and do our best to reflect it into the lives of those around us. Alfredo is not perfect, but he has the perfect love of Christ in him and it shows. We are not perfect, but we have the perfect love of Christ when we are in Christ. What a joy to release what He has put inside of us, as we show to others our Father's love.

“…because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.”
-Rom 8:14