{"id":138,"date":"2008-03-25T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2008-03-25T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/fearofwhales\/2008\/03\/oh-lord-if-you-get-me-out-of-this-i-ll-do-anything.html"},"modified":"2011-04-23T21:35:19","modified_gmt":"2011-04-24T01:35:19","slug":"oh-lord-if-you-get-me-out-of-this-i-ll-do-anything","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fearofwhales\/2008\/03\/oh-lord-if-you-get-me-out-of-this-i-ll-do-anything.html","title":{"rendered":"Oh Lord, If You Get Me Out Of This I \u2019ll Do Anything\u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<div><a href=\"http:\/\/ryangaffney.files.wordpress.com\/2008\/03\/africa.jpeg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" class=\"alignright at-xid-6a014e87f1cb84970d01538dfeac96970b\" height=\"300\" src=\"https:\/\/fearofwhales.typepad.com\/.a\/6a014e87f1cb84970d01538dfeac96970b-pi\" style=\"border:0 none\" width=\"300\" \/><\/a>\u2026Even go to Africa and help the pygmies!<br \/>\nIt turns out I\u2019m going to go do just that.<br \/>\nI don\u2019t know why every person trying to bargain with God for their  lives in a movie makes that offer, it makes no sense to me, and when I  became a believer no such deal was made, but nonetheless when an  opportunity arose to help hurting people on the other side of the globe I  felt compelled to contribute. And I\u2019ve just received word back that  indeed, I have been placed on a team to go into southern Africa and help  at an orphanage in inner-city Johannesburg, and a school in Swaziland<br \/>\n.  My secular friends think it\u2019s about time, they wondered why Jesus  hasn\u2019t made me go to Africa sooner, but I\u2019m still kind of floored by the  idea. \u201cPygmies\u201d are not actually part of the trip, the modern problems  in Africa are now a lot closer to home. 80% of the children in this  orphanage are HIV positive and many of them will die of their illnesses  because of the intense poverty in the area.<br \/>\nWe are sending doctors, and theologians and even accountants for their specialized skills. Why am I going?<br \/>\nI still don\u2019t know.<br \/>\nI\u2019m a computer technician\u2026<br \/>\n\u2026And a trained Improv Comedian.<br \/>\nI have no idea what Aids Orphans need with my Linux Certification, but God is faithful\u2026 And I\u2019ll keep you posted<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u2026Even go to Africa and help the pygmies! It turns out I\u2019m going to go do just that. I don\u2019t know why every person trying to bargain with God for their lives in a movie makes that offer, it makes no sense to me, and when I became a believer no such deal was made,&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":391,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[160,162,161],"class_list":["post-138","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-inspiration-2","tag-africa","tag-announcement","tag-missions"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Oh Lord, If You Get Me Out Of This I \u2019ll Do Anything\u2026 - A Fear of Whales<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fearofwhales\/2008\/03\/oh-lord-if-you-get-me-out-of-this-i-ll-do-anything.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Oh Lord, If You Get Me Out Of This I \u2019ll Do Anything\u2026 - A Fear of Whales\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"\u2026Even go to Africa and help the pygmies! It turns out I\u2019m going to go do just that. I don\u2019t know why every person trying to bargain with God for their lives in a movie makes that offer, it makes no sense to me, and when I became a believer no such deal was made,&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fearofwhales\/2008\/03\/oh-lord-if-you-get-me-out-of-this-i-ll-do-anything.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"A Fear of Whales\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-03-25T04:00:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2011-04-24T01:35:19+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/fearofwhales.typepad.com\/.a\/6a014e87f1cb84970d01538dfeac96970b-pi\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"rgaffney\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Oh Lord, If You Get Me Out Of This I \u2019ll Do Anything\u2026 - A Fear of Whales","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fearofwhales\/2008\/03\/oh-lord-if-you-get-me-out-of-this-i-ll-do-anything.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Oh Lord, If You Get Me Out Of This I \u2019ll Do Anything\u2026 - A Fear of Whales","og_description":"\u2026Even go to Africa and help the pygmies! 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