Least of These

(I'm not sure why this posted before it was finished. Sorry if you got this twice.)

Today was the hardest all around for me so far. The emotion of where we are and what we are doing hit me while we were walking around between shifts at the hospital.

We left the hospital around 12:30 and headed around town, by the black church, then up to the gondola that would take us to top of a mountain (sort of). While the journey to get there was hard and seemed to take forever on foot, the view was spectacular.

We did have an interesting conversation with a doctor today. She was completely amazed that people would come to Romania from America for only a week. She said that Romanians don't have any sense of volunteerism. I'll add a "yet" to that sentence for her. We have already met some people here who think what we are doing at the hospital is a great thing, and there are a couple of volunteers from the area.

The hospital was hard today. I spent a little extra time with the babies this afternoon while a few of the girls went to feed the newborns. One of the things I love to do is to bless someone secretly, so they don't know who or where the blessing came from. This is true with the babies. I knew this going in but I didn't know how much it would affect me. Each baby I hold or feed or change or play with will not remember me when I leave, but they are forever in my heart. Next week, some new strangers will come to hold and feed and change and play with them. I wonder what goes on in the minds of these little ones. As I tried to comfort a baby today with an IV in and his arm with a splint-type thing on it that was tied to the bed while he had a fever and I couldn't pick him up, my heart broke yet again for him. The IV was basically for dehydration, with no medicine in it really. He was so unhappy and just wanted out of that bed. All I could do was pray and cry.

"When he finally arrives, blazing in beauty and all his angels with him, the Son of Man will take his place on his glorious throne. Then all the nations will be arranged before him and he will sort the people out, much as a shepherd sorts out sheep and goats, putting sheep to his right and goats to his left.

"Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Enter, you who are blessed by my Father! Take what's coming to you in this kingdom. It's been ready for you since the world's foundation. And here's why:

I was hungry and you fed me,
I was thirsty and you gave me a drink,
I was homeless and you gave me a room,
I was shivering and you gave me clothes,
I was sick and you stopped to visit,
I was in prison and you came to me.'

"Then those 'sheep' are going to say, 'Master, what are you talking about? When did we ever see you hungry and feed you, thirsty and give you a drink? And when did we ever see you sick or in prison and come to you?' Then the King will say, 'I'm telling the solemn truth: Whenever you did one of these things to someone overlooked or ignored, that was me—you did it to me.'