Gift's of Love

This last week I was with the children at the mission again. There was about fifty that afternoon, and I got to talk with about thirty of the older ones. I also brought with me a beautiful sculptured turtle on a rock for show and tell that I borrowed from Palir’s art gallery. They loved seeing the sculpture and being able to touch it. Then I shared some of my experiences of helping people in Mexico. After I spoke with them they all clapped in appreciation for me, and then I sat down at the back of the room behind all the children. But then Maria did something I did not expect. She had all the children gather around me and they all laid hands on me while she put her hands on me also and prayed a powerful prayer. I was over whelmed by this and it brought tears to my eyes. After she finished praying, I thanked them for their love and their prayers.

Then the children cleared the floor of chairs and set up some tables to work on. They were given color crayons and sheets of colored construction paper to draw on. Everyone was excited with what they were doing and every now and then one of them would look at me and smile. I was not aware of what Maria had told them, but I took some pictures of them while they worked on their drawings. 

I didn’t understand what they were doing, until the children started coming up to me and handing me their works of art as a gift of appreciation.  They had colored pictures of the turtle or whales that I had talked about seeing in La Munga, and some drew flowers. A few also cut out red hearts and wrote little messages of God’s love for me or their appreciation and put their name on them along with mine in big bright colors. 

Some of the children even gave me hugs or wanted a kiss on the cheek. Wow, did I feel love. Then we all had a snack and some juice.

When it was time for them to return to their homes, Maria asked me to come along with her again for the drive, so we could talk more and see where many of these children lived. 

Most of the children did not have very nice looking home. They were very old and one house didn’t even have a front door; just a blanket draped over the opening, were a door had been. Some homes were on a steep rocky hillside with no road to drive on to get to their house. And another one was just a small concrete block house. 

By the end of the day God's love from me, won this young girls appreciation.

I felt so much love from these children, and their lives were being touch by God. Their love was wrapping around my heart, and yet it grieved me to see how so many had to live. But it didn’t seem to bother them, because they lived just like most of the others who lived around them. 

Maria and I wondered how we could do more to help so many people. Yet we knew God was the only who knew how. We would just have to trust Him, because He loved and cared for them more than either of us could.