Love needs no words

She never said a word. Not to me. Not to anyone else. She didn't sing or respond to sound or music. I don't know her name. I don't know where she came from or who she belongs to.

And I fell in love with her.

Touch ... she responded to touch. She'd smile a shy little smile into my face when I took her on my lap and clapped her hands together. She'd just as shyly reach out to touch me when my attention waned and was focused on another beautiful child who wanted and needed it.

I met her on Wednesday. On Thursday, they bussed in all of the children that we had gone out into the township to spend time with and shower our love on during the week.

As the hundreds of children piled into the auditorium, there she was. She didn't run. She didn't skip. But she had a purpose in mind, and her little legs moved steadily and confidently. She didn't stop to get in line for a gift or craft or to play with a friend. She determinedly strutted all the way across the huge auditorium ...

... and stopped in front of me. Her little arms reached up to me and I eagerly scooped her up. I hated to let her go.

Love needs no words.

Peace is powerful

Ultimately, we have just one moral duty: to reclaim large areas of peace in ourselves, more and more peace, and to reflect it towards others. And the more peace there is in us, the more peace there will also be in our troubled world.

- Etty Hillesum,
died in Auschwitz in 1943 at the age of 29. From An Interrupted Life, a compilation of her diaries and letters.

Masses

They came in masses.

Hundreds and hundreds of children. Children in need ... in need of love, attention, affection, laughter, physical care, shoes, homes, in need of HOPE.

They lined up for hours for a sparkly star on their face, a crown made out of construction paper, to draw pictures with new paper and crayons, for balloons, for specs and bracelets and doo-dads made out of pipe cleaners ... stuff that cost mere pennies, yet brought such joy to these children. You would have thought everything they lined up for was made of gold.

What can I give them? I felt so helpless and useless. Other teams were off doing the "real work" -- planting food gardens, holding medical clinics, building homes. What did I have to offer?

Then I realized that love really is more valuable than gold. Jeff said it best ... he didn't know before going over how time with these children, these precious and beautiful children, would change the world. But he learned that these children will remember the time that the Americans came over and showered love on them. They will remember that they are not forgotten or forsaken. They will remember that they are loved by the Americans who came to bring meager gifts and all of our hearts.

Love can change things. I know their love changed my life. I trust and believe that our love will change their lives. It has to.

Please, it has to.

(You can see Jeff all the way in the back of this picture with his Reds cap on ... surrounded by hundreds of precious, valuable, beautiful, and worthy children.Click the picture to enlarge.)

We're back!

I have a million stories to tell and don't know where to start. For now, I know that we can change the world one act at a time and that love trumps all.