They stand behind the sewing machine – four women in a picture
featured in Gospel for Asia’s catalog – dark eyes grateful but shy, olive skin
the color of coffee with cream, hair jet-black like shiny coal. One beautiful girl - she couldn’t be
more than fifteen - carries a baby mirroring her same striking facial features
in a sling on her back.
They’re from India, members of the lowest caste: the Dalits
or Untouchables.
These women have just received a sewing machine that will
enable them to make clothing for their families, but also generate an income
that will feed their children and send them to school. The sewing machine was a gift from
someone on the other side of the world, a gift that might cost the same as, for
example, dinner at a nice restaurant and an evening at the movies for you and
me.
But this gift will impact many people for much longer than
an evening – perhaps even years.
Maybe the baby on the girl’s back will even learn to use it. She seems so small and vulnerable, her
pretty little face peeking from beneath a white cap as she peers from the girl’s
shoulder. Maybe she will live a different life because of this gift.
The women at our church are buying one such sewing machine (or
more, depending on the donations) as a Christmas gift for a recipient we have
not met, nor shall ever meet. And
yet our hearts go out to this sister who also loves and hurts and cherishes and
dreams. I pray for God’s blessing
on our gift.
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