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Our Christmas Party with the Poor

Just imagine . .

You are a widow because your husband has died of AIDS, you are now HIV as well and the village and the family have rejected you. You are an orphan because both Mum and Dad have died of AIDS and because you are the oldest you have to care for the smaller children, alone. You saw your family massacred in a rebel attack, your home was burned and you live in a camp with no facilities at all. You are a child living on the street eating from the bins, chased away by everyone.

Then one day this week a man taps you on the shoulder, smiles, gives you a slip of hand written paper from an exercise book. He says, “Come to this place on this day, Come, I’ll collect you.”

When you get there people sit you down, sing to you, speak to you, wait on you as if you were in the restaurant the rich go to, and serve you with as much as you can eat and drink. They explain to you what happened on Christmas Day a long time ago and how this Jesus lived, died and rose again and will give you hope today. You are sent home with medicine, or a school book, or a mosquito net, or seeds or a tool to make money with.

You live in famine stricken and AIDS-ridden Malawi, in the refugee camps of north Uganda or in a colony of 325 socially unacceptable lepers in India and you have just been to our Christmas Party, the only party you have ever been to.

Three years ago the Lord spoke to us from Luke 14 saying,

When you put on a luncheon or a dinner, don’t invite your friends, brothers, relatives, and rich neighbours. For they will repay you by inviting you back. [This is what people do and what we used to do but not any more] Instead, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. Then at the resurrection of the godly, God will reward you for inviting those who could not repay you. Go quickly into the streets and alleys of the city and invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. Go out into the country lanes and behind the hedges and urge anyone you find to come, so that my house will be full.”
Jesus

Luke 14

So maybe you can to do the same as us this Christmas. Bless the poor, those crippled by life, AIDS or whatever, the lame who are limping because of the hardships of life or accident, and the blind, literally and spiritually. You find them in the streets, the alleys and in the bush – not in the churches. People who have become hopeless and helpless, people who have no-one to care about them, except Christ. You can serve them as if you were serving Christ himself [Matthew 25.35] and give them a day that they will never forget as long as they live which may not be much longer. We promise you – you will feel the smile of God instead of the smile of the shops who normally take your Christmas money.

This is how to have a Happy Christmas.

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