No Shoes ?

I recently watched a video tape about the poor and disadvantaged people in Vietnam. There was one young
pregnant woman whose husband had left home to live with another lady. Being very poor, the pregnant woman traveled a far distance to reach the city and sell her own blood. Another story showed men who had stumbled over old land mines from the Vietnam war and had lost arms and legs in the blast. Some handicapped people were abandoned by their families. The only way they survived was by laying on the street corner, begging for money or food from people passing by.
To pay their debts, the video showed many parents sending their young children to the city to collect trash. These children go to the landfills, when the dump trucks come late at night, to sift through the rubbish, hoping to find something salvageable to sell in the markets. As you can imagine, once anything is thrown away in Vietnam, it is usually in poor condition. Finding something worthwhile in the trash is scarce. These poor children often dream of going to school or going home to see their family again. Yet, they have no means to attend school or for a trip home.
Some families ran in horror as their makeshift houses and meager possessions washed away during a flash flood. They lost everything they had. The rice fields, their only means of survival, were destroyed. One man had drowned in the rising water and his wife and children could not even bury him for two weeks because the water was so high.
The stories are heart wrenching. We live in a land of plenty, so we often forget there are many people in the world who do not even have food or shelter. I remember the old phrase that says, “I complained I had no shoes, until I met the man who had no feet.”
The Bible says, “Be thankful unto Him and bless His name. . . Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits” (Psalms 100:4, 103:2). When we empathize with those less fortunate than ourselves, we find it hard to complain. We would be ashamed to say, “I don’t have enough clothes, my car is too old or my house is too small.” After knowing how much other people suffer, let us be grateful for what God has provided for us, and do whatever we can to help those in need.
Ly Lan Nguyen