Ready for an encouraging and challenging read? Something more uplifting than my normal stuff? Check out the latest Ethiopia Vignette from from Becky Black, Life and Death in Burji: Aki and Tiblett.
Becky tells the story of helping a mortally ill women get care for the last hours of her life. In the midst of this sadness, as my sister ministered in love to a woman who was going to die, God in His sovereignty presented an opportunity to save another life. Becky met a woman with a child that was near death, just another Ethiopian baby that died in childhood. Tragic for certain but what can we do?
We can love. When Jesus looked at humanity before the incarnation, it would have seemed hopeless to anyone else. Mankind is full of hatred, greed, anger, cruelty. Man wanted to supplant God. not worship Him. Why bother? Jesus bothered out of love because that is what He is, perfect love coupled with perfect holiness. It was love that led Him to take on flesh, to become like us in every respect and to be tempted and suffer and finally die for His sheep.
In America we slay perfectly healthy children in the womb because they are "unwanted" or simply inconvenient. Yet here is a sister, a world away with needs all around her, who saw a child that by any practical measure as the world defines it was not worth saving and she poured her heart out for this child in prayer and service.The result? Well, read Becky's post and see what a throwaway child looks like today. Even tough guy that I am, I got a little misty eyed.
Why are Christians so obsessed with issues of life? Because of children like this. Children that no one would miss outside of her family and yet saved for something wonderful through God's sovereign hand. It was no coincidence that Becky was in a position to take a dying woman to a clinic where she met this child and her mother. These opportunities to affirm life and show love are all around us everyday. We must simply trust God and do what Jesus would do. We can never go wrong doing that.
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