This was a post from Troy and Shari's blog - they are missionaries in Mongolia. To see their blog click here.
As much as you did not do..unto the least of these, you did not do unto me.
The
setting was a small closet size shed. The wind was blowing right
through the cracks and making my hair pick up. Dirt floor. No stove for
a fire so my hands and legs were getting cold just standing in there.
On the shelf there were two spoons,a knife, cups, a pan and the food
package that we had given the mother just a few days before when she
was at Flourishing Future asking for help.
The mother was
speaking to us, words that are too awful to repeat. Her many words
added up to one tragic story of rejection, sadness and poverty. As if
her whole life were a slow moving train towards defeat and now it was
picking up speed, going downhill fast...and she was in her own small
way doing all she could to put the brakes on.
I could not read Troy's face. At one point I wondered if he was even listening to her.
In
the end, I put my arm around her small shoulders. As if my touch
unlatched a forbidden door, where she kept her pain, she began to cry
out in great sobs.
The whole time I was thinking..."
how?" "
How will we ever be able to help?"
I
get this feeling at times, like I want to run. I want to run away from
the things I hear and see. Yet, Gods hand continually holds me steady.
I hear him say..."don't run...stop and look, look at what I have asked
your eyes to see."
When we got in the car to leave it was the
usual silence that befalls us after such visits. I wanted to scold Troy
for his lack of compassion. He had seemed agitated, in a hurry to leave.
Then he spoke up first.
"We can't leave them there tonight Shari. We have no other choice....we have to bring them home to our hasha." I
had been mistaken. Troy was more then there in the moment. He had been
overcome with God's compassion. He was about to break his own rules
about bringing people to OUR home.
Not so long ago, a less affected Troy, had said,
"You
can't just bring them into the house...our house would be overcome with
poor people! There are far to many. We have to deal with the problem
logically."
Well, logically had just become illogical to him.
I
began to remind him of all the good reasons NOT to bring a stranger
into you home. I'll leave it to your own intellect, I'm sure you can
even come up with a few I missed.
I heard his voice crack as if he were holding back emotion and he said to me,
"In as much as you did not do unto the least of these, you did not do unto me."
It silence me.
He
was quoting from Mathew 25. It's the story I really don't like to think
on too often. The one that kind of rips the rug out from all of my
justifications. It's the story that messes up the pretty picture of my
plans. It's the story that can make you look like a complete fool...if
you live by it. If you believe its words to be true.
I do.
"Shari,
if we say, God Bless you, be at peace...and leave her there in that
shack with her son, my conscience will not let me sleep tonight...will
yours?"
As I prepared the ger in our hasha for this new family God was challenging me even further.
"Put your good blankets on the bed."Instead of the older blankets, I went out to gather up some of my favorite ones.
"Not the half empty soap...give her your new full bottle."So I put out the new soap, the best hand towel...my favorite tea...
Until finally the ger looked so warm, toasty and inviting I kinda wished I was living in it.
I prayed.
"Thank
you Lord. Thank you for reaching down and putting me here...where I can
not hide or ignore the pain. I am a blessed woman to look and see and
KNOW that YOU are capable of taking even the darkest life and making it
glow again."
My phone rang, it was Troy. He had left an hour before to go get them.
"They can not come tonight...they are working."
Later
I learned that they work at night, in the wood market, cleaning it
up...gathering little pieces of left over wood so they can make an
outside fire for their supper.
The ger sits ready...maybe
another solution will present itself before they actually take
residence in my yard...maybe it is the solution.
Regardless...we
all must obey. We all must live Mathew 25 in our own everyday lives.
For there is always someone hungry, lonely, sick or in prison...and God
always asking us, "
What will you do unto or not unto me?"
