WHEN I GROW UP, I WANT TO BE A ........

Well today on the way home from bible study, Miduk told me he might want to be a pastor someday.  I wasn't sure if I heard him correctly or not!  I asked him if this was something new that he was feeling, or if he had ever considered it before.  He told me he has thought about it before.  He said "I like to help people and I see people in Jakarta and Medan (Indonesia) who hold out their hand and say "I am hungry" and it makes me cry and my heart hurt".  Yes indeed Miduk is very tenderhearted and compassionate towards others.  He was very curious about a hitchhiker whom he and Shelby saw this past weekend on their way home from Oklahoma, and of course in downtown Dallas on our way to Scottish Rite Hospital there are usually a few homeless people on the street corners. One time I gave some money to the panhandler as we waited for the traffic light to change (although admittedly I rarely do that), and Miduk asked me if I knew him.  So we have had many talks about homelessness, what it means to be hungry and not have a place to live.  So here is a boy from a poor farming family with an extremely hard life who wants to help other people?  Wow.  I told him I thought that maybe the reason he came to Dallas was not so much to get his hip repaired after all, but perhaps it was so that he could experience Christian fellowship and unconditional love that he could take back to his village someday.  That maybe this journey of his isn't about fixing his displaced hip, but more about him discovering what it means to be faithful and to trust God in every situation and truly feel the unconditional love that comes from knowing Jesus Christ.   Sometimes I feel like I am learning more from Miduk than he is learning from me!