Someone asked me if I wanted to go and eat when I got home, at the restaurant of my choice, and if they had asked me that 8 months ago I would have been very eager to go to Cheddars. Now,I want to go, of course, but my thoughts were there will be enough food on that plate for three people and some of the children in Ghana, especially in the villages, will not even eat some days. Don't get me wrong, I am grateful for the blessings that God has bestowed upon America and that we do not have to live in the conditions I have lived in here. But living here makes you so aware of just how much we have to be grateful for and just how much we are blessed.
I will not complain about many things that I have complained about in the past. I will remember the face of a hungry child knocking on my taxi window and begging for food, looking at an adult with tattered clothes walking the streets with shoes that are too small begging for food, the smiling faces of three salt workers who were working in this dreadful heat and humidity all day long and told me God has blessed them with a job, the small children, two or three years of age, playing on the sidewalks of of these busy streets just five feet away from speeding taxis, the infected soars on the tiny feet that I have bathed, the missing hair on the heads replaced by ring worm, having to take de-wormer every three months, feeling so alone while sitting in a group of 5 or 6 people who are speaking another language, laying my head down at night so far from home. I will remember and be grateful for what God gives me.
I have learned that much of what I thought I had to have I did not need and it became useless very soon after getting it. It sat in a closet or some other place and did not get used. I am praying God will help me to use my money wisely and I will give when I can to organizations like Feeding the Orphans or to the local homeless people. We enter the mission field every time we walk out our doors and I pray that my eyes will be opened to the physical and spiritual needs of people God places in my path no matter how saddening it may be.Most of us don't want to be sad and that is why we choose to leave those things up to "more spiritual" people. That just isn't my cup of tea. It is the life Jesus Christ has called us to. Singing about it and going home to our comfy little houses does not meet the requirements of being a child of God.
I had walls up when I left America for many different reason. I know now that not one of those reasons was good enough to shut out or pin up the love that God has asked us to have for each other. I have met so many beautiful people in the past 8 months and have been so aware of the people that have been in my life in the past and will be back in my life when I get home. I want to have deep meaningful loving healthy Godly relationships with as many people as God allows. Will I get hurt? Yes, I will. I will have an opportunity to live from my spirit and deny my flesh and I will praise God for the trials in my life because they will without a doubt bring growth and peace to my life if I am yielded to him. I know that for a fact because living here has been very difficult and God has blessed me with many trials along the way, but not once did he not give me what I needed or leave me to face them alone. He was here.
I am looking into yhe eyes of a beautiful four year old right now, Peter. He is smiling at me and he will miss me when I leave because he knows I love him. Heartbreaking but so very much worth it!
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| PETER |
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