Not for All the Money in the World

A wealthy European woman was on a safari in Africa when the group stopped at a hospital for lepers that was run by Christian missionaries. The heat was intense, the flies buzzing.

The wealthy woman watched a young missionary nurse stooping down in the dirt, tending to the pus-filled sores of a leper. With visible disdain, the woman said, "Why, I wouldn't do that for all the money in the world!"

The nurse quietly answered, "Neither would I."

I understand the young nurse’s answer, since I’ve had the joy of sharing God’s love with orphans, refugees, prostitutes, and drug addicts – from America’s Skid Row streets, to babies in mud huts deep in the African bush, and from starving refugee children from Red China, to abandoned orphans in war-torn Korea.

All the money in the world couldn’t motivate me to love, rescue and care for filthy, diseased, adults and children in Third World countries, nor keep me here on the dangerous streets of Skid Row.

But let me quickly add, that I dare not leave these streets, nor turn my back on those who suffer. Because it is God’s love that compels me to share the gospel, and care for hurting, hungry, rejected souls.

But I also hasten to add that I dare not take any credit for anything I have ever done, for as the Apostle Paul wrote, “I cannot boast. I am compelled to preach. Woe is me if I preach not the gospel!”

I’m sure the wealthy woman on safari who visited the leper colony in Africa, wouldn’t come to Skid Row “for all the money in the world.”

But if you have a heart like Paul, who was “compelled to preach the gospel,” I ask you to help us preach God’s Word here on Skid Row to lost, lonely people for whom Jesus died.

Blessings,

Willie L. Jordan

(Mrs. Fred Jordan)