Relationships

We have a saying at Rising Star Outreach, the charity I work with in India, that we are able to be effective only because of the principle of the Loaves and Fishes. In the New Testament, you will remember that during His ministry, at one point the people following Jesus had been with Him without leaving to go home for refreshment for the better part of the day. They were very hungry. Jesus, in His concern for their hunger, asked if anyone had any food. Only two fish and five loaves of bread were offered.

Jesus took the offering, blessed it, and began to break the food into pieces. He then asked His disciples to distribute the food to the multitude, which numbered over 5,000 men plus women and children. Miraculously the food blessed by Jesus fed the entire crowd. In fact, twelve baskets of food were collected after everyone had been fed. It was a remarkable miracle.

At Rising Star, we sometimes feel that all we have to offer to help fill the tremendous needs of the leprosy-affected people we serve is the equivalent of a paltry two fish and five loaves. Yet, somehow, through God’s grace, the small amount that we have is blessed by God to bless the lives of many people.

Most of our patients are either blind or going blind because of leprosy’s effect on the eyes. Karrupiah was one of those patients. He had been completely blind for 18 years. He was fascinated, therefore, to hear Dr Krishnakanth at one of the visits of our medical clinic to the Bharathapuram Colony, talk about setting up an eye clinic. Dr. Krishnakanth was signing up patients to have Lasik eye surgery.

Karrupiah quickly came forward and told Dr. Krishnakanth to sign him up for the surgery. Dr. Krishnakanth hesitated only a moment before telling Karrupiah regrettably that he wouldn’t qualify. He had been blind too long. There was no way the surgery would bring back his sight. Furthermore, Karrupiah was old and feeble. Dr Krishnakanth worried that the surgery would be too traumatic for his frail health. But Karrupiah was not to be deterred.

He informed the doctor that he had never seen his two grandchildren and then said, determinedly, “I want to see my two grandchildren before I die.” Dr. Krishnakanth rehearsed all the reasons the surgery would not work, but Karrupiah was insistent. He argued passionately. Finally, Dr. Krishnakanth acquiesced and agreed that Karrupiah could come to the eye clinic.

At the clinic the eye the doctors were hesitant to operate on Karrupiah because of his frailty, but once again, Karrupiah prevailed. He received the treatment and his eyes were bandaged. He was told to keep the bandages on his eyes for three days.

Two days later Dr. Krishnakanth returned to the colony to check on the patients who had received the Lasik surgery. When he entered Karrupiah’s home, he was startled to see that Karrupiah had removed his bandages. He asked him why he had done this prematurely.

Karrupiah turned towards the doctor and said, “Doctor? Doctor? Is that you, doctor?” Then with great enthusiasm he announced, “I am seeing you doctor!” Against all odds his eyesight had returned after all his years of blindness. In a rush Karrupiah continued, “I am seeing my grandchildren, doctor! Thank you, thank you.”

Karrupiah was beside himself with joy. He insisted on meeting the volunteers who had gone to the hospital with him. We brought the volunteers. When he saw them, he waved his arms over his head and cried exultantly, “I see! I see!” everyone was clapping and jumping up and down for joy.

Joyce Hanson was there for this wondrous occasion. When Karrupiah saw her, he noticed the Mickey Mouse watch on her arm. He wanted to know what it was. Joyce carefully explained that it told the time. This was a whole new wonder for him. He was quite taken by the idea, and so Joyce unlatched the watch from her arm and handed it ceremoniously to Karrupiah. “This is now yours to celebrate your miraculously restored eyesight.”

The story doesn’t end there. Shortly thereafter, I was in Laguna Beach to visit Ron and Joyce Hanson. We had a dinner at their country club to honor the nearly two years that they had run our organization in India. Their service in India had been transformative for us. Many of their friends came to join the celebration. I gave a short presentation about their time in India. As part of the presentation, I told the story of Karrupiah and Joyce’s gift to him of her Mickey Mouse watch.

After the dinner, Ron Hanson came up to me with an unusual expression on his face and instructed me to hold out my two hands. Mystified, I did as I was told. Ron placed into my hands a gold Rolex watch. One of the attendees at the dinner had been touched by that story and had taken his own Rolex watch off and handed it to Ron as a donation. We auctioned that watch for thousands of dollars!

The story even goes on from there. Several months later I taught a class at BYU Education Week where I shared this story. After the presentation a woman approached me, with her teenage son in tow. She told me that her son had a gift for me. He related how the story of the Mickey Mouse watch had struck him and said he wanted to participate in this miracle also. He handed me his Oakley sunglasses. His mother quickly explained that for his sixteenth birthday, he had told all his friends attending his party, not to bring him any presents—instead, to donate to his fund to buy a pair of Oakley sunglasses. His friends had been generous. He was finally able to purchase the sunglasses that he had envied for so long.

When he handed them to me, I told him I couldn’t possibly accept his gift; it was too great. But he was insistent. He was smiling radiantly.

On my next trip to India, I took the carefully wrapped precious sunglasses with me. We had a student at our school who was albino. She had a difficult time being in the sun outside because the sun was excruciatingly painful to her. We had brought her sunglasses before, but she refused to wear them—her vanity overcoming her need to see. But when we gave her the Oakley sunglasses along with the explanation that only the coolest people had them, she finally began to wear them and was able to participate in PE classes and our outdoor sports programs.

I share that story because it so beautifully illustrates how one act of kindness can sometimes generate multiple acts of kindness. The interesting thing about this particular story is that the response came from people across the world, who previously had had no connection to each other: the faith of a blind man in a leprosy colony in rural India inspired a generous response from a kind woman from California. Her reaction inspired a man at a dinner party in Laguna Beach. And finally, that generous action inspired a young 16-year-old teenager in Utah. None of those people knew each other, except the leprosy patient and Joyce.

The results of all this inspiration touched several lives, in addition to the lives of the persons responding to the blind leprosy patient. From the sale of the Rolex, dozens of people have benefitted through the program funded by this gift; from the gift of the Oakley sunglasses, a young albino girl in a school in rural India was benefitted. Isn’t it remarkable how the Lord can use our actions to benefit people across the world; people who have no known connection to each other?

One of my sons recently gave my husband a three-player chess game. It was mind-boggling to try to play it, as everything previously learned about playing chess no longer applied in the same manner. Previous learned strategies were completely ineffective. That— from adding one player.

As I look at the way God works in our lives, sometimes from people across the world who don’t know us, I imagine He must be overseeing a chess game with millions of players! And yet in His loving shepherding of our lives, He blesses us in ways we never would have been able to guess.

I like to think of the small acts of love that we each try to do are like tossing the proverbial stone into a pond. The stone splashes down, displacing a couple inches of water. Yet the ripples from that splash go out in ever-widening circles until the entire pond has been touched. Somehow, the Lord is able to take our small acts and use them in ever-widening circles as He blesses the lives of His children.

I’m convinced that the ripples in the story of Karrupiah are still increasing. I have shared that story now many times. I will probably never know in this lifetime; how many people have been impacted by it and inspired to generous actions. I will sometimes get random comments from people I have never met before, that they had heard of a story from our work in India and had taken action in their own neighborhoods.

Satan wants us to feel that too much is required of us; that our service is meaningless; that it is basically a waste. But the truth is just the opposite. No act is too small. God magnifies the principle of the loaves and fishes with however many loaves we have to offer.

This past weekend, I listened to a woman at our ward’s Relief Society women’s retreat. She told of a past involving drugs, drinking, arrests, jail time. She met the missionaries after a couple of women in our ward provided dinner for her. She was staying in a motel in our ward, and somehow, someone learned that she had a need. Our Relief Society arranged for some meals to be sent in, even though she was not a member of our Church. She never came down to meet us, just sent her son to collect the food. We assumed we would never see nor hear from her again.

But this weekend, I was startled to realize that this was the woman that we had sent a few meals to. She shed tears as she talked about how grateful she was to have made so much progress in her life. She seemed radiant as she shared her path of recent personal improvement.

I can only surmise that God must be playing chess again! But in all His brilliance He is still dependent on the giving of two fish and a few loaves of bread. Let’s be the givers!