Fish Buns

It’s an awful and rainy day. I woke up kind of grumpy. I’ve been feeling quite a bit of pressure lately between the demands of school and work and my finances and thinking about the long day ahead of me I did not want to get out of bed . As I finally stopped hitting my snooze, I checked my Blackberry and saw that I had a new email from Nelum, a pastor’s wife I know in Sri Lanka, and one of the most sincere and wonderful people I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting. Nelum and her husband Premadasa pastor one of the only Christian churches in Sri Lanka. It is quite dangerous to be a Christian in this country. They frequently receive threats on their lives and the members of their congregation are persecuted. There is talk of an anti-conversion bill which would make it illegal to become a Christian and their church is frequently visited by spies. The people in their country are quite poor and are in the midst of a violent civil war that threatens the safety of their families daily. This is part of the email I received this morning:

With the current economic breakdown you can imagine how it has affected the people, yet they encourage themselves to seek the Lord & experience His blessings. Some families where their are several kids cannot even come to church every week as bus fares are so expensive. Also they have to leave home early morning & when they get home it is late afternoon, so they have to find the money to buy at least a bun each for the kids. Sometimes kids who have not eaten faint in the church & this touches our hearts very much. Our people are sharing & even the ones who are going through much difficulty help each othe with bus fares or kids food.

I only asked you for a glass of milk for all the kids, but if you can help them by giving them a fish bun each too, it would be wonderful. I am giving you the breakdown of the cost of milk & the fish bun, separately, if you cannot give the bun it's o.k. but at least the milk would be wonderful, the little ones would be so blessed & their tummies full! If you can help us with this project I will keep an account that you can see & also get you some picutres of big smiles, I can just imagine their faces to see the milk, even most infants don't have milk as it is so expensive!

Suddenly my life had a completely different perspective. I couldn’t help but think how they must know God so much differently than I do. How they literally risk their lives for a faith I obviously know nothing about. I can’t comprehend what it would be like to live in that situation or how you could continue to hope when the world is literally crashing down around you. How does a mother watch her child faint from starvation and still continue to believe that someone is in control? Yesterday I was frustrated because I couldn’t find any closed toed grey heels and then I receive a heartfelt petition for milk and fish buns and I am reminded how selfish and shallow my life really is. I have a long way to go.