Love and joy and peace are almost essential qualities and characteristics when it comes to serving and ministering to those who are really poor.
We need the love of God bubbling up within us to give us the motivation and inspiration and even compassion necessary to keep on serving when it becomes hard and demanding and challenging.
Joy can be seen in the eyes of those to whom we give something that will relieve the pain and poverty around around them and that visible joy can cause a spring of joy to appear within our heart almost simultaneously.
It is always joy to behold joy in another person's sore life.
Then, there is peace.
Many people are marching for peace and writing about peace and struggling and even fighting for peace, but real peace is part of the fruit of the Holy Spirit of God.
That is just a fact.
There is a peace which come from knowing deep within that Almighty God is in control of this world, even when we are confronting the suffering all around us.
Those, in the slums of Kampala in Uganda, and in Mathere in Nairobi, whose hearts are filled with the love of God and whose faith is strong, know that deep peace which passes all understanding.
When one has a global perspective there is an ability to see the broader picture and to perceive just what is happening and about to happen behind all that is visible on the surface.
It is wonderful to be able to understand this whole aspect.
These dear people in Uganda and Kenya whom I have had the great privilege of meeting, have a sense of patience which is remarkable.
They are aware of the corruption going on all around them, but they are also aware of people who care doing what they can to help and assist and encourage.
Poverty and hunger and conflict and persecution enable some people to understand what others might never understand.
Hardship brings about amazing harvests on occasion and when those who are experiencing this share their story, it is heart rending and heart warming.
Kindness and goodness may be considered by some to be rather old fashioned but to those who look for a helping hand kindness and goodness may be the very thing they need to see them through another month.
Another word which is is so precious to those who are really poor is faithfulness and faithfulness in the west is a scarce commodity, especially in the realm of marriage.
Cultivate faithfulness and kindness and goodness and contribute to someone else's harvest.
Within a very short period you will reap the rich reward which only our gracious God can give and impart.
Sandy Shaw.