Recently Linda and I were in the Mekong Delta to give 100 poor students bicycles and also distribute food to another 100 poor families who had the extra burden of a severely handicapped child.
It was high summer in the northern hemisphere and the perspiration dripped off us as we gave sufficient food to each family to last them approximately one month. We were also blessed with a small team of doctors from Ho Chi Minh City who had come to the distribution ceremony, volunteering their time to examine these precious folk who simply could never afford to see a doctor.
Linda shared with the families why God had sent us to help them in their time of need. These were the poorest of the poor, and saddled with the extra burden of a child stricken with a birth deformity the lives of both child and parents would never be free of such a crushing blow as dealt by the devil.
As Linda was sharing with the gathered crowd I looked over to my right and saw a sight that bored deep to the centre of my heart and brought tears to my eyes. Sitting against the wall was a woman in her twenties cradling her handicapped child. This was a child who would never walk, never speak and whose facial features were severely distorted.
I watched the deep tenderness of the mother caressing the child’s head, of the tender kisses she laid upon the boy’s forehead, of how she gently rocked back and forth and whispered into his ear. For eight long years she had to carry the burden of the child so robbed of life, yet her love for her son had never dimmed.
That day that family was blessed greatly by the words she heard from Linda and the food we provided. But we were also blessed, for we saw again, as we have on countless occasions, the true beauty of love that surpasses circumstances.
Those supplies meant so much to those people, their tears of gratitude were very evident of that.