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Children of Joy
I have to say that one of the greatest joys for me is being with the children. It always amazes me that as poor as they are, they are still full of joy. Most of the children that come to our feeding program and clinic do not speak English, but we manage to communicate in other ways. I love to make them laugh by making silly faces or funny sounds. The children, especially in the countries of Africa and India, really get a kick out of this because here is a white man, which is enough of a mystery for them, doing these silly things. Their reactions are quite funny. Sometimes they burst out in laughter, sometimes they make faces back at me, and occasionally you get the little one who can’t figure out exactly what is going on and starts to cry. It’s beautiful that even though we cannot communicate verbally, we have so much fun with them. This encourages them to keep coming.
Many times we need more food, medicine, soap, and things like this, but run out because we have used up all of our resources. In this coming year I expect the needs of the children to double, so please, be generous in helping us. If you are donating regularly, please consider adding an extra $10 dollars per month, and if you are not a regular donor, please consider giving just $10 dollars per month, that’s a mere 33 cents per day. It may seem like a little amount but I have seen with my own eyes how many more hungry children we can feed and care for. Thank you for helping us to reach out to the poor children of this world. |
There is a special language that comes in handy for a missionary no matter where in the world he may be. I like to call it the “language of the children.” Many times developing and working hard in the missions in poor countries has its fare share of difficulties and challenges. However it also has many great joys.
Many of the children come to the center in the mid afternoon. From early morning they have been rummaging through the garbage sites in hopes to find something they can sell like an old belt or cassette tape. When they come, they come hungry and want to eat, but before they eat, we teach them that they must wash up first. They are delighted to do this because they don’t want to be dirty, they just don’t have any facilities anywhere to clean themselves. The smile on their faces as they wash their hands, face and feet is worth diamonds. We try very hard to create a loving and joyful environment for the children, after all they are children, but many times not treated as such. Thanks be to God more and more of them are coming to us for care and we are very happy to receive them.