A view of contentment

It's so good to be back! The doctor finally gave us a clean bill of health this week and it was great to wash my hair again. I even went to the beauty salon and had a special treatment done to my hair since it had been "ignored" for so long! Thanks so much for your concern and prayers...I really appreciate it!

This week I was also blessed to see a view of contentment unlike I've ever seen before. I recently joined a volunteer group at our school that raises money to provide needy children with a 9-year education. The government has not been providing this service so it is the family's responsibility to pay for their children's schooling. With the extreme proverty that plagues this country, not many children in the rural areas get the opportunity to have a chance at a better life. Since it had been several years since they had visited the children they sponsor, they decided to go see them this past week. I was blessed to be able to make the 3 1/2 hour trip north of Nanjing.

What I saw was a mix of heartbreak and admiration. These poor kids were amazing, considering the circumstances they live in. Their school is nothing but concrete buildings, and dirt playgrounds. Their classrooms have no heat or air conditioning. I am confident I would NEVER see a school like this in the States. The classrooms had a chalkboard and at least 35 desks. There were no lockers and all their books were piled on the desks. No cute reading corners and no colorful posters on the walls, just the bare minimum. As I looked around I noticed that there was no cafeteria. I asked where they ate lunch. The students said they go home everyday for lunch and return to the school. Some kids ride their bikes 40 minutes one way to get to school so I knew that going home for lunch is not always an easy task. Later, as we were visiting homes, we came to one of the student's home where he was cooking his own lunch! But in all of this, these children had a smile on their face that melted your heart. We brought little chocolate treats and stationery to give to them -- they thought it was Christmas! I was touched by their joy in so little.

The other part of our trip was to visit homes that the organization had provided special needs for. Because these families live in the rural countryside, they don't have the same privileges as those who live in the big cities. Our organization, in association with some foreign organizations, gave several families solar heat panels so they could have hot water and/or bio-gas tanks so they could have gas to cook with. We visited 5 homes that had one or both of these provisions. I was not expecting what I saw. The homes were 2 small buildings -- one being the kitchen, the other the "living" quarters. The kitchen consisted of a large stove that was heated by coals and a small counter for food prep. The living quarters was one, maybe two, beds and a dining table. That was it. The floors were rocky, dirt floors and they may have had one or two windows that were cracked and not insulated. Although they had electricity, they only had one or two lights available. Usually these homes were occupied by 6 or more people -- grandparents, parents, and children. They only had toilets if they had bio-gas systems (bio-gas uses waste and turns it into gas), and they only had showers if they had the solar panels. I also noticed that they had no refigerators and only a handful of clothes. The thing that impressed me the most was the great contentment these people had. They were very grateful for the services that had been provided to them and very hospitable to allow us into their homes. But the smiles on their faces showed their true feelings. If nothing else were given to them, they would die happy. How many of us can say the same? How many of us could have that same sense of contentment in those circumstances? It was a great opportunity for me to get a new view of true contentment.

I know that this trip and the things I saw will forever be etched in my mind and heart. I know that there will always be the poor among us (Deut. 15:11; Mark 14:7) and though we give already, I know that there is more that I could do. If anything I think this trip helped me to be aware of my own self-indulgences and my own lack of contentment with the riches I have been blessed with. I pray God will use this experience to grow me in new ways. As I rode home and reflected on everything I saw and learned, two verses kept coming to my mind:

Proverbs 15:17, "Better a meal of vegetables where there is love than a fattened calf with hatred."
Proverbs 17:1, "Better a dry crust with peace and quiet than a house full of feasting, with strife."

I saw these verses lived out in the lives of these Chinese people this past week. I pray that we can all live it out in our own lives this week and in the future.