Mission-Minded Moms – on Revive Our Hearts
Interview on Revive Our Hearts — Nancy Leigh DeMoss (Wolgemuth) with Ann Dunagan
(The following is an excerpt from Ann’s interview about “The Mission-Minded Family” on Revive Our Hearts — a nation-wide radio program for Christian women.)
I WAS NAKED, AND YOU CLOTHED ME…
ANN: The Lord has dug deep in my heart about the need of orphans. There were times where we would be in an area, and there were all these little naked children around. I just remember it began to stir in my heart so deeply. There was one point in particular that reminded me of a Hudson Taylor quote. As a young man, he said, “I feel like I cannot go on living unless I do something for China.”
I had gotten to this point where I felt like I could not go back to Africa again unless we did something big for orphans. There was this burning desire that just kept burning deeper. I finally just got to the point where I felt like I was about to explode. “I can’t come back here again unless we do something for these orphan children.”
NANCY: There’s a passage in Proverbs 31 that I know has been meaningful to you that talks about having this heart.
ANN: When we look at Proverbs 31, we usually start in verse 10. Proverbs 31:10 begins, “Who can find a virtuous wife? For her worth is far above rubies” (KJV). Well, if you read the whole thing in context, some of my favorite verses in the Bible are Proverbs 31:8-9, which say, “Open your mouth for the speechless, in the cause of those who are appointed to die. Open your mouth, judge righteously, and plead the cause of the poor and the needy.” (NKJV) The Lord began working in my heart about the importance of opening up my mouth and sharing, pleading the cause. Being ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading though us. God is seeing the injustice in this world. He sees children who are dying. He sees all of these needs. He wants for us to open our mouth and plead the cause of the poor and the needy.
NANCY: And it goes on in Proverbs 31:20, “She opens her hands to poor, and reaches out her hands to the needy” (ESV). So she doesn’t just think about this. This isn’t a burden she carries on her heart. It’s something she actually does something about in some practical, tangible way to help to meet these needs of the needy and poor around her.
ANN: There was this one time that my kids and I had done this major closet purging effort. We had gotten some sacks of clothes. The kids’ closet was a major disaster area. I thought, “Okay, we are going to conquer the closets.” So we took a couple days and organized the closets. W e picked up all the hangers. We had the giveaway pile and the throwaway pile. It was a major effort to get all these clothes organized.
It was shortly after that that I headed over to Uganda. I was doing this one women’s conference, and there were children everywhere around that place that were naked. There was one little boy in particular that had this ripped up shirt. He was the same age as my son Daniel, who at that time was thirteen years old. This boy had a ripped up t-shirt, no shorts, and no underwear. When I would go by, he would pull his shirt down so I couldn’t see. It just dug in my heart because I was thinking of even how proud I felt of my ridiculously conquered closets.
I went back to this little room I was staying in under the mosquito net, and I just said, “Lord, what do you want me to do?” I remember that God just dropped in my heart and said, “Ann, I am the one naked on these streets. Are you going to do something about it?” I just remember thinking, “What can I do?” We had a little bit of money, and we went and bought armloads of clothes. I thought, “This will be fun. We’ll clothe all these little naked kids running around.”
So our family started passing out these clothes and were trying to match up boy with boy clothes and girl with girl clothes. I thought this was a little, noble fun thing; this will be great. As we began, mothers came running from different areas of the village. Then word began to spread, and people came running, holding up little naked children, asking, “Can we have some of some of these clothes?” There was such a swarm of people around us that we ended up getting in the back of the truck. That didn’t work. I ended up on top of the cab of the truck, trying to pass out these clothes.
What I thought was going to be a wonderful thing ended up in pathetic pandemonium. It did something deep in my heart where I thought, “You know, the Bible says, ‘I was naked, and you didn’t clothe me'” (Matthew 25:43). I just came home, and I got a bunch of kids’ churches together with our own family to be a part of this. We thought, “What can we do to clothe the children in this village? All those kids that weren’t able to get something.” That was exciting.
NANCY: What did you do?
ANN: We did! We got a bunch of kids’ churches together, put up these little thermometers, and said, “We’re going to clothe a few of these villages. Who wants to come and help with $5 or $10?”
Our son, Daniel, during this particular time, God moved in his heart in a very real way. He had some savings. He had some money he was trying to save up so he could open up a checking account. He kept thinking about that little kid that was his age that didn’t have any shorts, only had one ripped up t-shirt and not even underwear. It just moved his heart in a very deep way. I remember, he went and dumped out all the money on his bed and came and gave us all of his savings and said, “I want to help those kids.” It was exciting. It was something that God had moved in his heart.
NANCY: So his faith is becoming his own faith, not just riding the spiritual coattails of his parents.
ANN: When God does something inside the hearts of our children, it is so precious.
