In today’s Gospel reading (Matthew 18:1-5,10,12-14), in response to the question “Who is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven?”, Jesus calls a little child over to him. He presents the child as a model of how we should approach and trust God.
A story from Rafael Gonzalez, a Comboni Missionary who worked in Kenya, came quickly to my mind after listening to the scripture reading:
“There were 120 starving, poor children in the mission nursery school in the semi-desert of Northern Kenya where I used to live. They received their only food each day from the school. At noon daily, the youngsters lined up to receive their dinner. Old tin cans, wooden bowls, or just two tiny hands, received a modest amount of porridge made from roughly ground maize flour boiled in water.
One girl, named Namoe, who walked very, very far each day to attend school, filled her little baked bean tin daily. Then, unlike the rest of the children (who consumed their food on the spot), Namoe left the mission property with her full container.
One day I followed her at a distance. On and on she walked, porridge in hand. A few kilometers away from the school, she met her mother and her younger sister, sitting alongside the road in the shade.
Namoe sat down. She placed the little tin of porridge on the ground in the middle of the group. And she shared her only food for the day with her mother and sister.”
What a rare moment of beautiful love Rafael witnessed that day. It speaks to me, in a special way, of Jesus’ words today: “Unless you change and become like little children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.”
– Maggie, Mark, Emebet, Isayas and Therese Banga, Comboni Lay Missionaries, Awassa, Ethiopia
