completion of Introduction 5

I remember the kids at the orphanage used to say “Thank God for life” every night when we would gather for prayer time. They didn’t just say this during war time. A visitor from the U.S. who heard them was amazed at the gratefulness they had even in simple circumstances for the very gift of life. Sometimes when we see other people’s circumstances it makes us more grateful. When I saw the woman’s condition at the hospital I was grateful for my own life, and it brought to mind a story told to me by a Youth For Christ Director who visited us when I was a refugee in Sierra Leone. He shared about a man who had decided to kill himself because he only had a pair of pants to wear. So, he went through the forest complaining and saying he was going to kill himself. There was another man hiding in the forest who heard him. He asked the first man, since you want to die can I have your pants to go into the village because I only have underclothes? The first man asked if he was serious and he said yes. He then realized his condition was better than someone else so there was really no reason to kill himself – at least he had pants. When he shared with us I was living in a refugee camp, surviving on rations that lasted only 15 days and not knowing where we would get food for the rest of the month, unsure if we would be reunited with our family or able to return home and had an uncertain future. That story was an inspiration for me to remember that no matter how bad things seemed there were always other people in a more desperate situation than me.