Bottles of life

For over a year now I've been collecting pop bottles and cans, returning them for refund, and sending the money to Dr. Jan White in Mbale. It might not sound like a lot.... but the bottle project has blown well out of its proportions and I have several people who help with it, and each week, we return well over 1000 bottles. We've raised about $2000 which goes a long way in Mbale, and it's good for us to get into the habit of giving.
The only problem is I hate it now. I walk into the storage room at school and see mounds of bags piled up waiting to be taken to the depot, and I feel sick inside. I've even started throwing my own pop cans in the garbage. (gasp!)
Yesterday I prayed that there wouldn't be enough bottles to justify taking a load in to the depot, even though I knew full well there would be. When I peeked into the storage room I hated it so much I walked away and decided to phone a friend up and beg them to do it for me this week. I left and walked around campus with a friend for an hour, thoughts of pop cans niggling my mind.
An hour later I was sitting and waiting for chapel to start and I thought about those bottles. In the library there is a big mural made of people photos on the wall, and there is one that I stand and stare at for hours and every time it brings tears to my eyes and puts a fire in my heart.
It is of a little Sudanese boy, so emaciated you can see all his bones protruding, and he is crouched down with his head buried in his knees, hands covering his face, and there are clouds of flies hovering around him.
I remembered that photo. How could I sit here, not wanting to get a bit of sticky juice and rotten milk on my hands, when some precious child like that one was dying in Africa because he didn't have food or medical treatment? I told God I wanted to obey him in faith and I asked him to help me. And I went and loaded 600 bottles into my car and took them to the depot.
Yes, I spilled sticky juice inside my flipflops. And inside my car. And down inside my sleeves.
When I started unloading my car at the depot, one of the men who worked there was happy to see me and came over to talk. I pulled a bag out of the car and a glass bottle dropped out and smashed on the pavement. He crouched down and started cleaning it up for me and helping me unload. "How are you doing?" He asked in his funny indian accent. Do you really want to know? I thought, feeling quite depressed. I gave some non-descript answer.
He looked up at me and said, "Don't worry, God will help you because you are doing this for other people."
I felt like hugging him! How did he know? (Don't worry, I didn't hug him)
The people inside the depot were all smiles and they helped me sort bottles and asked me how I was doing and how was school. I thought about it later and realized that all these months I have been faithfully coming in there, hating the bottles but committed to loving God and having a smile on my face, I have been sowing seeds into their lives, and the lives of children in Africa like the little Sudanese boy, and it has all been worth it.