Many days my heart is filled with joy- especially when it comes to the little babies I get ‘to love on’ here. Some of you have sent beautiful, ‘gently worn’ baby clothes and shoes and I have had the joy of passing them out. The mothers grab the new clothes to their breasts and shriek with joy and say “thank you Jesus” over and over. Then they hurridly pull off the rags their baby is wearing and put on the clean new clothes. They are so proud of them! Such darling little babies-all of them!
But other days are much harder. Yesterday was one of them.
I took our friend Asfaw to the local hospital to get treatment for his eyes. When I came out of the clinic I noticed there was a group of people gathered around next to my bajaj.
I went to investigate and there I found a small, still bundle in a mans’ arms. It was a dead child- probably only three years old. Snakebit. They had brought the child to the hospital from their rural village, but it died before they arrived. The mother was sitting in the dirt-crying and moaning-her friends holding her in their arms. The father, with vacant eyes-holding his dead child in his arms. My heart broke for them.....life is so hard here.
At times, I can hardly bear how they live. What can I do? I cried with them and hugged them and offered what small words of comfort I know in Amharic. I gave them money to hire a truck to take them and their child back to their village for burial. I gave them some bottles of water for their sad journey. All I can hope is that whatever amount of compassion that Jesus put in my heart for them, was felt by them-and that they would know that there is a Comforter who loves them like no other. I don’t know how some people live who have no hope of Heaven. How they can live, believing that this life is all there is.......Please keep this family and others like them in your thoughts and prayers- for strength to endure this hard life they face---and also offer up thanksgiving to God who has blessed you with the life you have.
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