Hardship and Suffering

No blog on China is complete without a picture of the toilet facilities. It is known as a squatty potty for reasons that need no explanation. Tissue goes in the wastebasket, not down the drain. This one is relatively clean and even had a door. I will not tell about the one in the shopping area in Beijing with no doors and lines in front of every stall. Use your imagination.


For me 17 days of occassional SPs and eating at places so filthy my husband had to go outside is hardship. But what we saw today and what Cheryl sees everyday she is here goes so far beyond that there is no comparison. It is true suffering.
When we walked out of our 4star hotel this morning past that a new pink arrangement of lilies and rounded the corner a 3 or 4 year old girl approached us holding out a stainless steel bowl. Her mother was teaching her to beg.
Most places we went we were surrounded by crowds of people pushing, moving, motorcycles and bicycles weaving through crowds, crowds weaving through traffic. Everything horribly filthy. As we were pushing toward another group of stores , out of the corner of my eye, I noticed an 8 or 10 year old girl kneeling forward on the edge of the sidewalk with her shirt ripped off her back showing terrible burn scars. There was a bowl to collect money on the ground beside her. Cheryl said it is possible she was deliberately burned so as to collect more money. Hardly anyone gave her a passing glance.
This evening as we waited in front of the church for Xiao Ping this is the scene we were part of. I had the nerve to pull out my camera this time. That is a living human being on the ground beside us.





I often glibbly say "you can't help everyone, but you Can help the ones God puts before you". Easy for me to say, I live in America and I am not tripping over people in abject misery daily.
May God's richest blessings be on those, like Cheryl, who have the courage to choose to follow God's call to minister in places like this. C