What's the Point? I will show God's love by meeting other's needs!

Tuesday's High Point

SHOESHINE BOYS

When we left the apartment in Quito, we moved to Santo Domingo De Los Colorados. The town was just a large village. There was a restaurant on the town square that we frequented. The building was simple cement block construction with a solid wall in the rear and on one side. The front and the other side had a wall that was about waist high. We liked to sit by the half wall. On the other side of the wall there were usually 3 or 4 shoe shine boys. They boys were between 7 and 11 years old. When a bus came in or a likely customer appeared in the park, they'd trot off and offer their services. Between jobs they waited, crouched on the other side of the wall.

The restaurant discouraged the boys (or any one else for that matter) from approaching diners and asking for food so that beggars didn't run off customers. However, there was always food left on our plates and those of our little boys. For us, our dinner wasn't complete until we shared what was left. We would call the boys over and let them eat when we were finished. We'd sit the plates on the wall and the boys would come running. They'd crouch down on their side of the wall for a few minutes. When they'd finished, they'd stand up, hand us back the plates and say thank you with a brilliant smile.

To this day, I hate throwing away food. My mind always goes back to those skinny, dirty little street urchins, the shoeshine boys and their absolute joy at eating food from a real plate.

The Hungry

I was reading Boo Mama's blog today about her trip to Uganda...I had a flashback to the first time when I met true hunger.

We had been in Ecuador for only a few days and had rented an apartment -- the top floor of a three flat. I was up early and stepped out on the balcony with a cup of coffee. The early morning sun shone on the city of Quito. Our little bario was the equivalent of suburban American with neat houses, brick streets, as well as very un-American iron gates and tall fences surrounding our homes.

My husband had set out the garbage for pick-up that morning right outside the gate. I had dumped coffee grounds, left-over rice, scraps from our plates, potato peels and wrapped them in newspaper. (The Ecuadorian equivalent of a plastic bag.) I was watching a Quechua Indian woman walk down the street with her baby strapped on her back. She was colorful and interesting to my Gringa eyes. I watched as she walked slowly toward me.

She didn't stop at any other homes that I saw, but she paused as she drew near our drive. She stooped then and reached into our garbage can, found the newspaper wrapped packet, and laid it on the top of the garbage. To my amazement, she opened the newspaper, reached in a took a handful of the mixture. Before I could recover my senses, she reached her hand up to the baby on her back and feed him my garbage. Tears rolled down my face as I stood motionless, unable to do anything but cry. She picked up the rest of the newspaper wrapped "food," and looked up to wave as me before she moved on down the street. I turned to my two and three year olds calmly eating breakfast at the table and marvelled at the grace of God.

I resolved to never mix coffee grounds, potato peels or other inedible things with my leftovers again. For the rest of our 3 month stay there, every morning I left a neatly wrapped package of left over food right on top of our garbage. Each morning she'd come by and pick it up, wave to me and go on her way. She didn't speak Spanish; I didn't speak Quechua. At that moment we were simply two young mothers feeding breakfast to her child.

Hunger had a face. I was never the same again.

PJ



If you'd like to help feed a child, go to Compassion International