"Make Me a Channel of Your Peace"

These are the lyrics to a hymn we sang in church this past Sunday; it's a prayer commonly attributed to St. Francis of Assisi. The words perfectly sum up a lot of things I've been thinking and praying about regarding ministry in the Red Light District and life at de Poort:

1. Make me a channel of your peace:
Where there is hatred, let me bring you love;
Where there is injury, your healing pow'r,
And where there's doubt, true faith in you.

2. Make me a channel of your peace:
Where there's despair in life let me bring hope;
Where there is darkness, - only light,
And where there's sadness, ever joy.

3. O Spirit, grant that I may never seek
So much to be consolded as to console,
To be understood as to understand,
To be loved as to love with all my soul.

4. Make me a channel of your peace.
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
In giving to all that we receive,
And in dying that we're born to eternal life.