This Sunday I am preaching on the second greatest commandment, “Love your neighbor as yourself” and while I think there are some things the kids could do to better follow this command, I can’t help but think that they are in many ways far beyond us.
The kids at Angel House are blessed and when you compare them to many other children around Tarime they seem like they have all they could ever want. Despite that most of them could fit all their belongings in one, maybe two, big suitcases. This past Friday however they showed how much they really had and how much they were willing to give. We had eight new kids who had shown up with either the clothes on their backs or maybe one extra set of clothes if they were better off. As always money is tight in nonprofit work and we knew from previous generous donations that our kids had more than one of some things. So we asked. Who had shoes, blankets, towels, or clothes that they could share with our new kids?
The response from these kids was amazing. It happened during a house meeting, with all the kids sitting together. Possessions starting forming a pile on the floor. Some kids were shy about it, while others were excited to be able to help out. Some gave one thing while some gave many, but to watch them bring stuff in to meet basic needs of their new brothers and sisters made me think about Acts 2 and what church basics used to look like (they didn’t used to start with a secretary or building fund). By the time everything was done we were left looking at a pile of shoes, sheets, blankets, towels, and clothes that was big enough for every new child to have what they needed.
While I can never do justice to the vision I saw that Friday evening I hope that we can learn something from these kids. Kids who probably all together could not fill an average America house, but can still take care of their brothers and sisters, their neighbors. Can we?
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