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TableTalk is a growing archive of snippets and stories from the heart of our fellowship. The Caring Club October 1, 2005
Posted by Lindquist in : Editorial , add a comment“Jesus said, ‘Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them; for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven’” (Matthew 19:14).
One of our younger missionaries - Emma, age 7 - has recently invented a missionary structure for the ages. She calls it “The Caring Club.”
The club is an excellent example of social entrepreneurship. Emma has identified a problem worthy of consideration: the plight of poor children in Kathmandu, the city in which she lives with her missionary brother (age 5) and missionary mom and dad (somewhat older). She has identified a resource that might impact the situation for the better: her youngish colleagues and friends. And she has entrepreneured a structure for bringing together the needy and the caring. Emma and her friends…and the needy children of Kathmandu.
The entire adventure began a year ago, approximately, during a visit to Emma’s grandparents in the United States. She chanced upon a music box. When she opened it, of course, the wind-up box produced a tune: “It’s a small world after all.” Perhaps the reader will remember it. It is a Disney tune and the theme of a popular attraction at Disneyland.
“What does it mean?” Emma asked her mother. Her mother replied, “Well, it means that we can make a difference in others’ lives - even if they are very far away.” Her mother tells that tears filled Emma’s eyes as she pondered the connection. And from that moment onward, the die was cast. Emma set out to make a difference.
Emma would care. And not only Emma. She anticipated that her friends and colleagues may want to join her in caring. The needy children of Kathmandu were so many! So Emma created a club for the caring under-ten set at her school.
The club has met once or twice a month, over the course of the past year. They have prayed a little, done a little research, narrowed their focus, and planned a course of action. Rather than all of the children in South Asia - or even in Kathmandu - they selected a single orphanage in the city. They went on to plan a Caring Fair to benefit the orphans they had chosen.
I would like to have been there. Some of Emma’s colleagues taught the orphans finger-painting. Others operated a “fish pond,” stocked with a few small gifts. A missionary dad brought a flannel-graph and told the Christmas story. In the end, a handful of orphans in the valley of Kathmandu experienced an in-breaking of the Kingdom of God. Jesus himself was doing some caring…through the Caring Club.
This is a story that filled me with hope, when I heard it. The world is filled with dizzying volumes of need: violence and misunderstanding, poverty and injustice, sweeping spiritual blindness - and then Rita and Katrina, too. But we’ve got Emma. When the sisters and the brothers set out to make a difference - when they learn and dare to participate in the caring of Jesus - then volumes of need are no match. You focus. You pray. You band together with your colleagues. And miracles occur.
Where will your caring carry you?