Suffer the little ones...

³⁶ He took a little child whom he placed among them. Taking the child in his arms, he said to them, ³⁷ “Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me does not welcome me but the one who sent me.”

No doubt Jesus had a great love for children. Ar passage in Matthew describes the scene like this:

¹³ Then people brought little children to Jesus for him to place his hands on them and pray for them. But the disciples rebuked them. ¹⁴ Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.” ¹⁵ When he had placed his hands on them, he went on from there.

Last week my friend, Sayeed Naseer, a Major in the Afghan National Army came to lunch. As a bonus, just for me, he brought his youngest daughter, an eleven year old princess named Satera (accent on the last "a"). It means "star" and fits her perfectly.

I am surrounded by kids in this city. They are out of school for the three months of winter instead of summer, but they desperately need to be there all year long. An entire generation of school-less Afghans are looking for a way to get by. They pick through garbage on the roadside in hopes to find something of value or even to eat. The sell trinkets and scarfs when mine are playing Xbox & PlayStation or enjoying a afternoon Blizzard from DQ.

Not sure what I can do. There is so much potential in them...so many future stars. Go find a "star" today...yours or someone else's. Hug them and pour into their lives just a little bit of wisdom and compassion. You never know what they will become.