This place has made me a lot of things. Sad, happy, more loving, quick to listen, and hopefully a better friend.. But more than anything I believe it’s made me thankful.
I catch myself being thankful for silly things… And then realizing I usually take “silly things” for granted.
One of those silly things are spoons. Every day I watch children scoop up rice and beans out of their big bowls into their little mouths with even tinier fingers. The dirtiest little fingers I’ve ever seen. I’m thankful for spoons.
I’m thankful for shoes. On any given day you can see one of us on the front stoop cleaning cuts on feet with hydrogen peroxide, a little neosporen and lots of band-aids. Nail wounds mostly, and things that little shoes could prevent.
I’m thankful for balloons. We’ve had the pleasure of getting to be bystanders as 5 year olds see balloons for the first time. Balloons make life that much more alive. And I’m thankful for them, and the children that are drawn to us because of them.
I’m thankful for pens. Children (and adults) here are mostly pencil users, just because many can’t afford ball point pins. Many of mine from home are long gone of ink, from letting children practice alphabets and names with them, and marvel at the ink coming out.
I’m thankful for the word of God, and for it being instilled in me from a young age. The Bible wasn’t translated into Swati (The language of Swaziland) until 1996… I was 2 years old. And the bible had been in America for I don’t know how many decades. I’m thankful for hymn books and church pews and Sunday school and books.
I’m thankful for the safety I feel in my home, the vehicle that can get me anywhere, Ah! And for napkins. No such things are here. For indoor plumbing and hot water. For the mail service and dogs as pets. For the love I feel, and the hurt I can enter into, no matter where I am.
This week I talked with a woman who was bed ridden in her home at the age of 25. She was dying from a treatable disease, right before my eyes.
I’m thankful for life, and life to the full.
“And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of The Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.”
Colossians 3:15-17
