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Have you heard the expression “Boots on the Ground?” Well our Live Dead Missionaries are the boots on the Silk Road. Here we’d like to take a moment and allow one of them to share a snapshot of their life with you. Some names and details have been changed, but this is a true story from this colorful, vibrant, and sometimes surprising region.

Our 4 year old daughter loves people.

She loves people who don’t love back. She loves on people regardless of their personal boundaries. She makes friends quickly.

So, I wasn’t surprised when Paris made friends with a neighbor girl. It was a fast and furious friendship. I’m not even sure they exchanged greetings before they started dancing with each other, swinging each other around, skipping in the room and giggling nonstop.

Paris is amazing in these situations. Anything she can try to say in her new language, she tries. Completely unashamed.

I felt so proud.

And then Paris fell and cut herself. She was not embarrassed to cry in front of her new friend. She really cried. I asked our son to run home to our house to get a bandaid. I would clean the cut later. I just knew a Dora bandaid would at least begin to bring a sense of calm.

While I was waiting on my son and Dora to come to the rescue, I watched her little friend take a leaf off of a tree, run it under water and lay it on her cut.

You would have thought that her friend crowned her princess or something. Paris thought it was the greatest treatment for her devastating injury. But let me be honest: I had DORA band aids from AMERICA…her friend wets a leaf with dirty water and she’s the star?

I was almost offended.

I watched Paris jump back up and resume dancing with her little friend. And I sat there amazed at that little girl’s simple, resourceful, gift.

A wet leaf.

So, when my friend came to me exhausted a few weeks back, I offered her my bed for a nap. She slept for 2 hours getting just enough energy to go back home and face life there.

I wondered what more I could have done for her that day. But at least it was something.

A wet leaf for a weary heart.

Little becomes much when given with love.

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