My mom has a gift. She loves people through the unfortunately-going-out-of-style art of sending cards. The paper kind, not text on a computer screen. There is just something about the act of putting pen to paper, choosing just the right words, the time spent thinking about someone-- the love shines though. I received a card from my mom this week. Not for Christmas or my birthday, just because. On the back it told a story that I feel I need to share...
"In the Makapa Valley outside Nairobi, Kenya, thousands of homeless families live in a vast shantytown that begins to assault the eyes, ears, and noses from high atop the surrounding ridge. The ankle deep med, open sewers, and hungry, hollow-eyed children overwhelmed me within minutes. Sensing my discomfort, my guide, an Ethiopian friend, said to me, "You see only the despair. "Come and see the hope."
Down an alleyway and around a corner we came to an open courtyard about ten yards square, surrounded on all four sides by lean-tos. Two of them were for sleeping, one was for cooking, and one was a classroom. Small children filled the courtyard. A dozen old women sat on benches along the outer edges.
"What do you see now?" my friend asked.
What struck me most were the smiles and the energy.
"What makes the difference?" I asked.
"Love," he replied. "These children are outcasts-- orphans with no one to care for them. And these old women thought they had nothing to live for until they began to look after the children. The orphans had no hope until they were touched by such love. Look around you. The shacks here are no better than those elsewhere, the ground is no cleaner, the food no more plentiful. The only difference is God's love reaching out through human hands."
(Written by Eric Fellman)
I was blessed to have had such love from my mother (and father) when I was growing up. Now I am blessed to be able to love orphans in Liberia who live in similar conditions as the Kenyan children in the story above.
If you read my last post, you know I've been thinking about moments lately. Each moment is a chance to change a life. My mom does that through her card-sending. The old women in Kenya through their care of the children. Sometimes I get to hold a child in my arms and love them deeply.
What is your moment? Look for it, embrace it, linger with it. It is worth it. And when you take that moment you don't only change yourself, you get to change someone else's life as well.
"In the Makapa Valley outside Nairobi, Kenya, thousands of homeless families live in a vast shantytown that begins to assault the eyes, ears, and noses from high atop the surrounding ridge. The ankle deep med, open sewers, and hungry, hollow-eyed children overwhelmed me within minutes. Sensing my discomfort, my guide, an Ethiopian friend, said to me, "You see only the despair. "Come and see the hope."
Down an alleyway and around a corner we came to an open courtyard about ten yards square, surrounded on all four sides by lean-tos. Two of them were for sleeping, one was for cooking, and one was a classroom. Small children filled the courtyard. A dozen old women sat on benches along the outer edges.
"What do you see now?" my friend asked.
What struck me most were the smiles and the energy.
"What makes the difference?" I asked.
"Love," he replied. "These children are outcasts-- orphans with no one to care for them. And these old women thought they had nothing to live for until they began to look after the children. The orphans had no hope until they were touched by such love. Look around you. The shacks here are no better than those elsewhere, the ground is no cleaner, the food no more plentiful. The only difference is God's love reaching out through human hands."
(Written by Eric Fellman)
I was blessed to have had such love from my mother (and father) when I was growing up. Now I am blessed to be able to love orphans in Liberia who live in similar conditions as the Kenyan children in the story above.
If you read my last post, you know I've been thinking about moments lately. Each moment is a chance to change a life. My mom does that through her card-sending. The old women in Kenya through their care of the children. Sometimes I get to hold a child in my arms and love them deeply.
What is your moment? Look for it, embrace it, linger with it. It is worth it. And when you take that moment you don't only change yourself, you get to change someone else's life as well.
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