I'm Rachel Jeffcoat editor of the "Especially For Youth" page. I hope you enjoy the different stories, fun facts ,and creative ideas we feature each month!
"I Once Was Blind"
My jeep bumped along the muddy trails one late Friday night in Africa. I was anxious to return to the mission station after spending a long day in the neighboring villages, yet was forced to a slither as I manuevered my vehicle along a path that was glistening, grayish brown with muck and mire. I gripped the steering wheel as if my life depended on it, and my sweaty glasses slid til they teetered precariously on the tip of my nose. I raked my hand through my hair in frustration. At this rate who knew when I would reach home?
Suddenly a black silhouette seemed to emerge from the shadowy wall of jungle growth. Random, incoherent thoughts flashed through my mind as I slammed on the brakes and skidded to a screeching halt. I swung open my passenger side door and peered into the face of a very, very dirty little African boy.
The boy seemed to look my direction but not directly at me. It was then I realized, he was blind. "Come into my car," I spoke quietly in the native tongue. The boy climbed up without incident. He plopped into the seat; a look of complete exhaustion etched on his features. "Why are you alone? Where are your parents?" I asked. "They have abandoned me here because...because I cannot see,' he whispered; tears streaking through the dust on his face. "I have no home. No one cares for me. They all think it better if I died.
My mind raced. The natives would sometimes discard children with handicaps, but I had never faced the injustice myself. Inside, part of me screamed, "be practical you live with a native preacher in a remote village, spending your days healing physical and spiritual conditions, how can you help this child?" But my heart cried at the sight of him forsaken in the jungle. I sent up a swift prayer and immediately felt peace. Bending over I retrieved my glasses and set them firmly on my nose. "Little boy," I said decisively, "you're coming home with me." In my peripheral the child's eyes grew big as saucers. I chuckled.
When we arrived, the native pastor stood in the doorway, arms crossed. He shook his head. Before he could speak, I held up my hand and pleaded, "Were we not all like helpless blind children before our Savior found us and took us in?" The man's face remained stern but he whispered as I ushered the boy in our tiny hut out of the rain, "Then we will have to call him Moses because he was drawn out of the water."
The next four years flew by like a dream, as I visited new areas with Moses ever at my side. When he was eight, he accepted the Lord as his Savior, ridding himself of spiritual blindness. His favorite hymn was Amazing Grace and he sang it at every opportunity.When the village children laughed at his lack of physical sight, he would smile and chant in a sing song sort of way the last line of that song, "was blind but now i see, was blind but now I see, was blind..." One day I received word of a Christian orphanage 50 miles away and I knew that I had to take Moses there. Although I felt as though my own heart was being ripped out, I gave him over to their care. He was almost instantly adopted by a young African couple... I never saw him again
It has been years since that day. I am an old man now, short and wrinkled... but today...
I was driving in my battered jeep to a village I had never visited before when I heard singing. It was the song "Amazing grace," but when they reached the last line, they chanted it over and over...like Moses used to do! I jumped from the vehicle and hobbled, rather swiftly for an old man I must admit, into the village where I saw a huge group of children gathered around a man... a blind man. I yanked my glasses up my nose. It was Moses! I called out to him in a hoarse, breaking voice. He stood stock still and then smiled in recognition. In the same moment we sped towards the other. I completely ignored my slipping glasses, and in a second we were in each others embrace. We wept uncontrollably as children surrounded us. He touched my arm and said, "Just as you took me in when no one cared for me and made me your son, so have I done. These here are all my children." I looked at the hundred or more beaming faces and realized...they were all blind.
I lifted my head to the sky... My eyes had become waterfalls, my heart an overflowing cup. I don't remember how long we stood so, I a pale shriveled old man with his glasses laying dejectedly on the ground in a muscular African's arms. But I do remember the children calling me grandpa and the verse written above the door of their home: " Suffer the little children to come unto me and forbid them not for such is the kingdom of heaven...."
by: Rachel Jeffcoat
What's Happening?
On November twenty-sixth, we (the jeffcoat family) are leaving for India. We are all so excited about returning and looking forward to what the Lord has planned. Please pray for us during our four month stay in that part of the world!