Meeting Maggie

So, once again I'm taking this blog back to my China trip. While in Loyang, we went to an orphanage to spend time with the kids there and have a Christmas in July party with them. We spent our few days trying to just love on these kids, give them attention and time while doing 'special' things with them. We took the kids to eat at a KFC and play in the park, just take them out of the orphanage for a while. I'd been told the day before we went out to find two kids to be 'mine' to keep up with as we were out. I'd met a little girl named Maggie and decided I'd try to get to know her and to be one of my kids the next day. It didn't exactly go as I planned, she was pretty shy with me and I was starting to be afraid that I was totally scaring her so I just backed off, hoping someone else would choose her.
The next day we were about to leave and as everyone was taking their child's hands and I still didn't have anyone, the nanny standing nearby put two young girls hands in mine, to my surprise it was Maggie and her friend Abby. Spending the day with those two was so amazing, they taught me to count in Chinese, we laughed and took pictures together, though they rarely ever get to eat out they made sure they never took any food without giving me some. These girls were so awesome, fun and sweet.
Later, when we had been at the orphanage for a while and handed out the Christmas gifts, Maggie took my hand and led me outside to the roof top playground. Everyone else was inside and it was blazing hot out side in the muggy Chinese air. She motioned for me to bend down on her level, took out the little necklace she'd just been given as a Christmas gift, and put it around my neck. It was the best and most heart wrenching gift I've ever received.
For a week after I got home, I couldn't get her out of my mind or what she'd given me. I prayed and prayed about it trying to understand and figure out why this was on my mind constantly. I just felt like I was missing something. What did God want me to learn from this? I wanted a great, final epiphany, something big. As I talked it over and shared what had happened with a friend, she simply said maybe the point and reason was just that I needed to remember and think about what she did, what she gave. This child doesn't have many possessions, no parents, she doesn't even have a soft place to lay. Maggie is an orphan, but she gave to me. I'd come half way around the world to pour myself out and through one little gift I realised just how much I had to learn and that I have so far to go 'till I'm truly pouring my heart out for others. Maggie gave me more than a necklace, she showed me my purpose in this life.