excerpt from "Safely Home" by Randy Alcorn... thoughts to follow...
"The watchers searched the earth, their eyes probing every tent, cave, hole, and dungeon. The King looked at the continents, his eyes searching from place to place. He would pause periodically, watch and nod.
In the Netherlands a small church gathered on its knees to pray for the persecuted. In Australia, a church took a special offering to assist a ministry getting Bibles into closed countries. In Korea, a church made plans to cross the border. In Singapore, a man left his family to board a plane, for some remote destination.
His eyes rested now on a 5th grade Sunday school class in America as they collected money. “This is all I earned last summer mowing lawns” said a boy. “This is the money I was saving for a bicycle” a little girl said, smiling. A boy proudly handed his teacher an envelope. She opened it, then looked at him. “Where did this come from?” I told mom and dad we’d been talking about persecuted Christians and how to help them.
I told them how we were all making a sacrifice to collect money to help. My parents said they wanted to help too. So I said maybe we didn’t have to go to Disney Land; maybe we could just go to the beach for the weekend. That’s what we did. We had a great time. This is all the money we would have spent, you know for planes and hotels and admissions and everything.
The King watched nodding and smiling. “Thank you” he said to the children in the Sunday school class. He turned to the men and angels of the watching heavens “whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did it for Me. Your reward shall be great."
"Never forget Jesu is King. Never forget this is not your home. Never forget your Father is waiting for you."