If I could only become a bird

Let’s ponder this…

“American radio broadcaster Paul Harvey once told a modern parable about a religious skeptic who worked as a farmer. One raw winter night the man heard an irregular thumping sound against the kitchen storm door. He went to the window and watched as tiny, shivering sparrows, attracted to the evident warmth inside, beat in vain against the glass.

Touched, the farmer bundled up and trudged through fresh snow to open the barn door for the struggling birds. He turned on the lights and tossed some hay in the corner. But the sparrows, which has scattered in all directions when he emerged from the house, hid in the darkness, afraid.

The man tried various tactics to get them into the barn. He laid down a trail of Saltine cracker crumbs to direct them. He tried circling behind the birds to drive them toward the barn. Nothing worked. He, a huge, alien creature, had terrified them; the birds couldn’t comprehend that he actually desired to help.

The farmer withdrew to his house and watched the doomed sparrows through a window. As he stared, a thought hit him like lightening from a clear blue sky: If only I could become a bird-one of them-just for a moment. Then I wouldn’t frighten them so. I could show them the way to warmth and safety.

At the same moment, another thought dawned on him. He has grasped the reason Jesus was born.”

The Student Bible, NIV by Zondervan, pg. 1039

Sometimes we read without reading. I don’t know many times I have passed over this little devotional in my Bible. Today God’s still, quite voice asked me to read it. Now I know why. To give me a new perspective to Jesus that I hadn’t considered and took for granted. God loves us so much and knows us so well that He sent his Son so that He wouldn’t frighten us and show us the way to warmth and safety. I thank God that he is so gracious and loving to send Jesus to us.

God Moment: We had literacy lessons in the fishing village today. Jean Beny was sitting next to me and I was helping him write the ch sound in the Haitian alphabet. CH, ch, chita, sit. At the end of the time, we went over the new vocabulary sheet they got from Kerry this week. The whole group was going too fast for Jean Beny and I wanted to make sure that he pronounced everything correctly. I started working with him one-on-one. When we finished, he called a translator over to him and proceeded to tell me that next week he wanted me to go through the list with him again. Of coarse I agreed right away. We got up from the table, shook hands, and he asked, “Samdi?” (Saturday?) I replied “Wi!” (YES!) I wanted to tell him YES times one million. I think I’ve found my literacy buddy. I will share more of his story soon and share a picture of him J

Word/Phrase of the Day: The thing the men struggle with the most when writing is letter proportion. They don’t understand the difference between capital and lower case letters. I constantly have to remind them how to write in the lines and where capital and lower case letters start.

Gwo: big

Piti: little

Mwen vle we gwo “CH”: I want to see a big “CH”

Mwen vle we piti “ch” : I want to see a little “ch”