Sermon Central
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I Was No Longer The Dirty American
Contributed by Sermon Central on Jun 18, 2007 (message contributor)
I was no longer the Dirty American
I read a story the other day on the Internet by a missionary to India named Doug Nichols. Nichols was serving as a missionary in India when a bout with tuberculosis landed him in a public hospital for a spell. It wasn’t like hospitals here. It was a big ward filled with patients lying on beds. As long as he was stuck there, and he was a missionary after all, Nichols tried passing out Christian literature to the patients and staff. But everyone politely refused his tracts, everyone. But then he said, one night I noticed the man in the bed next to me, an older and sicker patient, trying to get out of bed. He kept trying to get out of bed but couldn’t. No one came. And finally the emaciated man gave up trying and collapsed back into his bed. Nichols fell asleep. When he awoke the next morning, the ward smelled awful and he realized the man had been trying to get up and go to the bathroom but didn’t have the strength. And no one had come to help him. The other patients started insulting him. And the nurses were angry and rude as they cleaned him up. This happened again the next night. The man spent a long time trying to crawl out of bed. And no one came to help again. And he finally gave up and collapsed in his bed. But this time Nichols got out of bed and helped the guy to the bathroom, and then helped him get back to bed. And Nichols said the next day, after this one act of kindness, everyone’s attitude in the ward changed towards me. He suddenly wasn’t the dirty American anymore. One man brought him a cup of tea and asked for some literature. And throughout the day a number of the patients and staff actually came up to him and asked him for one of his tracts. Looking back he said ‘what it took to reach those people was one simple act of kindness.’
We must witness in word and deed
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