I had never thought that life could be so touching, bitter, and unfair until the day my inner eyes were fully open to a broader life scenario.
A few years ago, I stepped foot on an under-developed country. After the plane landed on a small, outdated, and dirty airport, I was suddenly greeted outside by tens of beggars, all looking weak, hungry, and sick. I was caught with the greatest surprise! As I looked around helplessly, I saw a man walking towards me and saying that he was the person assigned to help me to the hotel where I was to have my accommodation. Yet, the beggars were still thrusting their hands towards me and some even knelt down pulling my trousers and touching my shoes mourning. – I was extremely moved.
As I was about to force my body away from these people, I heard an inner voice saying: “God loves a cheerful giver”(2 Corinthians 9:7). I thus asked the man to instruct the group of beggars in their dialect that I would like to help them, but they must first line up neatly so that I could give them money one after another, and that they must not cut queue. So they obeyed the instructions; I then quickly walked to the money exchange counter to change my home currency into their local currency. As I started gving money to the beggars one after another, I was nearly moved to tears when I saw a few were weeping and repeatedly hitting their foreheads hard onto the ground showing immense gratitude to me.Checking in the hotel, I saw many people moving around the lobby joyfully and the environment was just the opposite to that I experienced at the airport.
I couldn’t help feeling that God must have left the poor and needy. - That night, as I flipped open the Bible, I came across a verse that God appeared to speak to me: “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted” (Matthew 5:4). All of a sudden, I seemed to understand – Didn’t God today send me thousands of miles away to comfort some mourning people at the airport, albeit with little means? A few days later, I went to the same airport to board a flight back home. Again, I saw a group of beggars rushing towards foreigners outside the departure gate.
I quickly moved into the air-ticket counter and avoided being confronted by the beggars. After purchasing the ticket, I went into a restroom to answer my call of nature. – Suddenly, I found a man sleeping on the floor of the restroom. As I walked towards him, I found his eyes were wide opened. Waving mmy hand to him with a smile, I found that he was motionless.
Looking closer, I discovered that he was dead! I quickly went out and reported my findings to the receptionist. To my surprise, he was not moved at all and simply smiled at me saying that this event nearly happened everyday. He then asked me solemnly whether I wanted to do a charitable deed by burying this man who died this morning. - Intuitively, I realized that this could be a scheme undertaken by airport staff by placing dead people in the restroom in order to seek help from foreigners.
When I was about to walk away from the counter, again God spoke to me: “If you give to the poor, your needs will be supplied! (Proverbs 28:27). I thus pulled out two $20 notes from my wallet and passed them to the receptionist who was greatly astonished by what he saw. He then quickly gave me a receipt.Later, looking down from a window of the airplane that took me back home, I could not help feeling both sad and happy: I was very saddened by all those incidences which were more vivid, bitter, and touching than movies; I was very happy because I had done what God wanted me to do – to plant some little seeds of kindness on a distant land, thousands of miles from home.
