One grain of rice or a billion dollars?

When I was at Mullai, a compound with a Christian school and church, I saw a little girl sitting on the ground, staring at me. Then she turned once more to her little pot of food and searched to see whether there might be one more grain of rice left. I had never before seen a child search for a last grain of rice.

Meanwhile, in this country there is much anxiety about the economy. We learned this morning that a multi-billionaire discovered he had been swindled out of a billion dollars he had invested for other people and so he killed himself. It is difficult to understand.

It keeps snowing and snowing. Tomorrow is Christmas Day and I am not certain my daughter's family will be able to get through the new snow that is supposed to fall tonight. It is one of the most beautiful sights I have ever seen but it is also very dangerous. Yesterday I was driving very slowly on a busy major street. Suddenly my car turned completely around on a patch of ice. Fortunately, all the traffic stopped while I turned the car the right direction. We grew up with winters like this and so I do know how to drive on snow and ice but strange things still happen.

There are shelters with beds for all the homeless people. But they must get up early in the morning and go to the daytime shelter in another place so that the beds and sleeping areas can be cleaned. Our church is one of a group of churches that has homeless families stay for a week at a time. We take turns bringing meals and eating with them.

I hope you will have a blessed Christmas. It turns out that the little girl with the empty pot of rice was much more blessed than the man who lost a billion dollars.