Mother Teresa of Calcutta said,
“God has identified himself with the hungry, the sick, the naked, the homeless; hunger, not only for bread, but for love, for care, to be somebody to someone; nakedness, not of clothing only, but nakedness of that compassion that very few people give to the unknown; homelessness, not only for a shelter made of stone, but that homelessness that comes from having no one to call your own.”
As I embrace a child with no parents I affirm that although she is clothed, fed and has a shelter over her head, she is desperately hungry for love, naked without someone to cover her with compassion and homeless without anyone to call her own.
We begin the new school year on September 1st. I am amazed at how far we’ve come in less than two years since our beginnings in Moldova. The doors have remained open for us to be a loving, stable presence for extremely vulnerable children living at a state boarding school here in the capital city. We have gained the trust of teachers and administrative staff, and gained momentum with a growing number of Moldovan interns and volunteers from local churches and high schools.
I begin the new school year excited to see how God will work in our growing community. I also begin overwhelmed by the needs, aware that the challenges we face are too great for our meager resources. I find courage as I listen to the words of Starets Zosima in Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s novel The Brothers Karamazov:
At some thoughts one stands perplexed, above all at the sight of human sin, and wonders whether to combat it by force or by humble love. Always decide ‘I will combat it by humble love.’ If you resolve on that once and for all, you can conquer the whole world. Loving humility is a terrible force: it is the strongest of all things, and there is nothing else like it.
May we all walk forward determined to enter combat with humble love. I’m afraid we too often seek to overcome obstacles with our limited human strength and strategies. May the Lord teach us all to rely on His strength, and may the Holy Spirit fill us with that terrible force of humble love that Dostoyevsky describes.
Thank you for your prayers during the time I spent with my family to grieve my grandfather’s death. I remain truly grateful for my family and am inspired by the legacy my grandfather left.
Thank you for prayers during our summer camps in August. These special days contained some of the sweetest moments I can remember with the children. On the final day of camp, thirty children and twelve adults gathered hands in a circle and then crowded in for a closing prayer. As we pressed in for this giant group hug, I heard an excited cry from a little boy, “I’m in the center!” Sure enough, there he was, dwarfed by the taller bodies around him, exactly in the center. Love for this boy was truly tangible that day. Pray that the love will continue to flow among us, bringing healing and transformation in our midst.
~Rahela