Love Out Loud - "Love on Wheels"

I think I shared with you all, as part of my "High Five for Friday" post a few weeks back, that one of my favorite things from that week was buying this book:

So just as it says, it's a book of daily devotionals and I am absolutely loving it!! I try to read it in the mornings, right when I wake up or right before bed if I missed it that morning. But each page is a devotion - super short to read, but packed with messages that really shake you to your core.

Today's story was so powerful to me, I wanted to share it:

~Love on Wheels~

He who oppresses the poor reproaches His Maker, but he who honors Him has mercy on the needy. PROVERBS 14:31 NKJV

I once met a ten-year-old girl named Gchi. When we met, she had lived in a trash dump in Cambodia for six years; many other children had lived there much longer. Gchi's parents could no longer support her, so they asked her older sister to take her, and the only way the two could survive was to live and work in the trash dump. Gchi spends seven days a week digging through the trash with a metal pick or with her hands, looking for food to eat or for pieces of plastic or glass she can sell to get money for food.

This is the city trash dump, and every night the garbage trucks back up to the pile of trash to dump the remains of other people's lives, which they have gathered around the city. The children work at night, in the dark, wearing helmets with lights on them because the best garbage is found when it first arrives.

When I shared this story with people, many wanted to help. We began to plan, work, and raise money. After about a year and a lot of effort, we managed to turn two large buses into mobile restaurants, showers, and schoolrooms. They pull up to the trash dump; the children get onto the bus, get a shower, sit down to a nice meal, and even receive some lessons in reading and math to help prepare them for a better future. Of course, we share God's love with them, but we don't merely tell them they are loved, we show them by meeting practical needs in their lives. 

~Joyce Meyers

So messages that come to the surface for me...

• One man's trash is another man's treasure
• Do small things with great love
• Do what you can with what you have
• Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.
• Live simply that others may simply live
• Nobody can do everything, but everyone can do something

What other things does it make you think about? What are you doing to make a difference in the lives of people in need?