Forgiveness

Today we had a full day of serving again (last Monday we didn't get to serve because our van was broken). We went to Sanyu Babies Home this morning and I stuck with the babies (6 months-1 year) today. There were several new babies in the room, I'm not sure if that is because they moved them up from the lower room or simply because they recently were abandoned, sadly based on the malnourished look of most them I'm thinking they were recently brought to the home. They are so precious, its hard to understand why or how they can be abandoned. Even our Oscar, he is a bright boy, cute and loving, and his mom is capable of doing more to support him, but when requesting that she pay for his school fees she threatened that she would take him back and give him to her own mother to look after him, and then he'd never have a chance to go to school, get proper medical attention or even eat adequate food. She seems capable now of taking on the responsibility of raising him but she is dodging it?! It is really sad to see.

This afternoon we went to A Perfect Injustice and taught them about forgiveness, God's forgiveness, other people's forgiveness and forgiving others. Auntie Sarah explained all the different types of forgiveness, Auntie Cassady explained the story of Joseph forgiving his brothers and then I led them in an activity and game. I drew and cut out a bare tree about 18" tall and then asked every child to write their names on one side of a leaf and the words 'I am forgiven' and 'I forgive' on the other side and then we pasted our leaves of the Forgiving Tree. I used the illustration that before having Jesus in our hearts our tree is bare and dying, but we can be fruitful through Him. Cute, eh? Some of the boys shared some sad stories of having to forgive and being forgiven, but at the end of our time there I got to hear a great story about a Muslim boy who was a street kid for 4 years and through A Perfect Injustice he came to know Jesus, was adopted into the boys' home they have, they renamed him Isaac and he is completing high school shortly. He comes back to share his story and encourage the kids towards reconciliation with their families and towards Christ when he is on holiday from school.

Tonight I am so thankful for the opportunity to be encouraged in the service of ministry by salvation stories such as Isaac's, to know that the work we do makes a difference. 11.19.12