When PEOPLE Don't Matter...

We got the call on Sunday morning, as we were headed out to church.

"PLEASE can you help?"

A man, injured and bleeding badly had been found in a ditch by the road.  The local government official, Duncan, whom we have befriended, tried to find a free police car (not so common here in Kenya).  NONE were available. 

He hailed down car after car as they passed by on the road... not ONE stopped to help - they were in a hurry, turning in to the CHURCH PARKING LOT.

Brad changed his morning plans and drove to help out.  Both of us, and many friends, praying that he would not do his usual - and faint at the sight of blood.

They arrived at the hospital.  Emergency care was given, since Brad was there to pay...  

Duncan helped Brad clean all the blood out of the car.  

Back to church.

We PRAYED that the man's family would be able to track him down- frustrated that there was nothing else we could do!

John Waweru...  There are so many here with that name!  By the dirt on his shoes, Duncan guessed as to where he could have come from.  It was very red, compared to our local, more brown, sandy dirt.

Late that night, Duncan called.  The family had found their son! 

Thugs had robbed John Waweru, then chased him until he fell into the ravine.

What horrified Brad and I was to discover that John's family had found him, still unconscious, in the grass outside the hospital - where the hospital personnel had dumped him.  Evidently, this is "normal".  If a patient doesn't have anyone there, watching and willing to pay for more care, then the person is carried outside - to live or die...

We've walked by those people in the grass before!  
Obviously sick or hurt, we never understood exactly why they were there!  
Now, I have a rock in my stomach as I think about them.

As I retell this story, I am STRUCK...  

Who am I "hurrying" by, on my way to "church"?

Do PEOPLE matter?  

Does EVERYONE matter to me?  

My prayer for myself, 

and for each of us in the church today - 

let's not HURRY past 

the people GOD has called us to LOVE!!!

 

A story that Jesus told...

²⁵ Just then a religion scholar stood up with a question to test Jesus. “Teacher, what do I need to do to get eternal life?”

²⁶ He answered, “What’s written in God’s Law? How do you interpret it?”
²⁷ He said, “That you love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and muscle and intelligence—and that you love your neighbor as well as you do yourself.”
²⁸ “Good answer!” said Jesus. “Do it and you’ll live.”
²⁹ Looking for a loophole, he asked, “And just how would you define ‘neighbor’?”
^30-32 Jesus answered by telling a story. “There was once a man traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho. On the way he was attacked by robbers. They took his clothes, beat him up, and went off leaving him half-dead. Luckily, a priest was on his way down the same road, but when he saw him he angled across to the other side. Then a Levite religious man showed up; he also avoided the injured man.
^33-35 “A Samaritan traveling the road came on him. When he saw the man’s condition, his heart went out to him. He gave him first aid, disinfecting and bandaging his wounds. Then he lifted him onto his donkey, led him to an inn, and made him comfortable. In the morning he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, ‘Take good care of him. If it costs any more, put it on my bill—I’ll pay you on my way back.’
³⁶ “What do you think? Which of the three became a neighbor to the man attacked by robbers?”
³⁷ “The one who treated him kindly,” the religion scholar responded.
Jesus said, “Go and do the same.”