Disappointment

Recently, I was in Colombia and I was given a wonderful gift from a little girl.  I wrote about her several weeks ago.  She gave me a Mario Brothers plastic figurine.  Edilynn told my wife that I looked like him!  Big guy wearing a red shirt.  She insisted I take it.  She had nothing, nothing at all.  She lived within a sand iron of the city sewage lake.  Yet this little girl insisted on giving me her toy.

I was so proud of it and I brought it back and proudly displayed it in my office.  It meant a great deal to me.

Late last week a customer came in and asked me to write him a letter of recommendation.  He had his two sons with him.  I gave them each a gold dollar which is my custom.  I praised them about being good young MEN.

The next day the Mario Brothers figurine was gone.  It hurt and deeply disappointed me.

What a contrast.

These American boys live in the abundance of American instead of the poverty of Colombia, accepted gifts of kindness, praise and material possessions and then steal more from the giver.

Edilynn (my little Colombian friend) lives in poverty I can not begin to adequately describe.  Edilynn gives gifts from her heart and her meager possessions to an American that only gave her a smile, a huge and a prayer.

What a contrast, indeed.  I pray I never forget the lesson Edilynn taught me.  In reality it is far more precious than the Mario Brothers figurine.