Remembering our China Mission trip

I pulled  this from our mission trip blog a few years ago.  My friend Shannon wrote it and I just loved it...as a reminder of what the Good Samaritan REALLY is.  I am doing the "empowered to connect" class by Dr. Karyn Purvis right now (please see her book THE CONNECTED CHILD if you are anywhere around adoption!) and we talked recently about being "good samaritans."  What makes a person walk by others in pain?  Is it because it will cost me time, or money?  DO I not have the time?  REALLY?  Or is it because I have never suffered?  WOuld I act differently if I had been in the shoes of the beaten down...the tired, the hurt.  
When we went on this mission trip, we felt like Good Samaritans....but we quickly saw it was not us, but the children we encountered, who served this role.  People tell me how "good" my family is for being "willing" to adopt.....but I think we will be the ones who are "lucky."   


Please go reread Luke 10:28-37

I am the "expert in the law". I knew the commands and I came on this trip. I was ready to love certain neighbors but not these. The first day at the orphanage I asked my Savior "who is my neighbor". Father, forgive me.

I have seen the "beaten" and "half dead" and as a priest wanting to walk by thinking unclean, unclean. I have often had eyes that sees leipers not children. Father, forgive me.

And I have been the Levite. I am the one given Glorious knowledge and responsibilities. An opportunity to share the One. But I quickly cross the street as I look upon the broken, robbed, and oppressed. Father, forgive me.

Who is the Samaritan? By the grace of Him perhaps I have been at times and hopefully even more today. But I will tell you who the heroes are on this trip.

It is the hungry boy who walks by a group of more disabled children and quietly drops his bag of cheerioes on the floor so they can eat. He drops it unsuspectedly so that others wont rush in and take from the defenseless ones. The hungry feed the hungry.

The hero is the fatherless who lovingly tend to younger ones needs. They feed them, protect them, guide them and obviously love them. The fatherless parent the fatherless.

The hero is the child who gets a beloved lollipop and then is given a second one. What does he do with the second one? He gives it away. The poor give to the poor.

Last year's leader sent us an email and one of the most insightful and loving things she said to us is that we will discover that we are the ones with the disabilities, not the children. We agree.