Even the armless are welcome!

Yesterday at church a young missionary from YWAM was talking about her work in Guyana. It was very moving and very inspirational for me as she talked about the work she is doing with children there. Made me think about my life goals... working with disadvantaged children has been in my heart since I was in high school... and while in some ways I do that now, I have always wanted to work with children who come from poverty, harsh situations and who need even the smallest amount of light. I know this sounds awfully idealistic of me... but it has been something on my heart for many years. When I first started my masters degree, about 1 semester in we had an opportunity to move to the U.S. We thought very seriously about this and I looked into switching to several graduate schools in the U.S. and on the top of my list was one where I would be able to work with children in the inner city. The school was fabulous but I had a hard time selling DH on the idea of moving to Kansas. Obviously the move didn't happen and it wasn't the path we were intended for. I guess we'll see where this path takes us.

That said, the whole point of me posting this morning was to share a funny story that missionary told us. They travelled to this very remote village and took a TV with them... first TV this village had ever seen. The village leader had wanted to show his community Passion. The missionaries also brought some veggie tales thinking the children might enjoy them. Apparently the veggie tales were not as well received. One of the elders of the village began questioning the TV, concerned it was evil and asked what the show was even about. Keep in mind that not only was this their first TV viewing but they had never seen animation before! And when you think of it, Veggietales has a lot of jokes that you might miss if you were from a different culture. Anyways, one of the missionaries explained that it was about being God's children and the woman exclaimed "How can they be God's children, they don't even have arms!!"

LOL! Perhaps veggie tales wasn't the place to start in this situation!!