“Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Does he not leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.’ I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.” Luke 15: 4-7
Whenever I speak about the work of Amazima, I’m often asked about the size of our programs … How many children are in your feeding program? How many children are being sponsored? How many people have you provided with medical care? I’ll be honest, I have a hard time sometimes with the numbers. I can tell you percentages up and down, the number of children we have fed and helped, the number of people in Uganda who are without family and without Jesus. I can tell you the statistics of poverty – that 1 in 5 children in Uganda will die before they turn five years old from hunger-related illnesses, and 1 in 3 lack access to clean water. But love is not about numbers.
Love is about real people. We become desensitized when we make love a number. Love is the faces of my friends, real people with real hearts and real stories. It is the faces of your friends, too. Our Father knows the intricacies of each unique human life. He created each one of us, and loves each of us deeply as we are. You are not one of the masses, and neither are the people in Uganda, or the people in the Ukraine, or the people in Japan. We are each fearfully and wonderfully made, and when we are lost, our Father searches for us. When He finds us, He scoops us up onto His shoulders and carries us back to the flock. He tends to each of our unique, individual, unspoken and burdensome needs as our Good Shepherd.
