2011 Challenge

On October 21, 2007 there was an article in the Sunday Chicago Tribune entitled, "How Holocaust heroine rescued 2,500 children." Something within that article compelled me to cut it out of the newspaper and put it in a file folder to save.

The article is about a Kansas teacher, Norm Conrad, who assigned a project to four of his students for National History Day. The four students chose to do their project on Irena Sendler; a Polish Catholic social worker that had been mentioned briefly in an article about heroes of the Holocaust. The students were able to locate Irena residing in a Warsaw nursing home. They became friends with Irena making several trips to Poland to interview her and those she had saved. Their project that year was a ten minute play about Irena called "Life in a Jar." They later expanded the play to 35 minutes and Irena's story has also been made into an Hallmark Hall of Fame movie.

Irena would travel into the Warsaw ghetto and smuggle out Jewish children and place them in homes of non-Jewish Poles, in Catholic convents and in orphanages. Irena buried detailed lists of the ancestry and whereabouts of each child she rescued in glass jars under an apple tree in a friend's Warsaw yard. When Irena was caught by the Nazis, she refused to reveal the location of those jars even under torture and threat of execution.

Over the course of these past three plus years, I have been asking myself why this article touched me so much? Is it because I am fascinated by the time period of WWII? Not so much the the strategies of war, but the day-to-day relationships that were affected and the need to live simply. How did people choose to do good and not succumb to evil?

Is it because I have asked myself could I have done what Irena did? I hope my answer would be "yes." But I truly wonder if I would have the courage. Is it because as a mother I think about the cruel choice the Jewish mothers in the ghetto had to make. Keep their babies and children knowing there was no hope for them to live or choosing to give them up to Irena and her team knowing they would never see them again. I cannot imagine the pain of that separation.

This morning it has come to me why this article has stayed with me. It is because of that Kansas teacher's classroom motto, "He who changes one person, changes the world entire." Wow, this is what Irena did. Think of all of the lives that were impacted because Irena not only was able to change the course of history for one life but 2,500 lives.

Is this not the same thing Mordecai did with his niece, Esther. He raised her in his home after her parents had died (thus changing the course of her life.) Mordecai taught Esther as she grew. Even when she was in the running with the other women for the position of queen, Esther 2:20, says "she continued to follow Mordecai's instructions as she had done when he was bringing her up." Mordecai later tells her when she is faced with the decision as Queen to approach the king about Haman's plan to kill all the Jews, "And who knows but that you have come to royal position for such a time as this?" Esther does expose Haman's plan and helps to save the Jewish people. Again I am reminded of the quote, "He who changes one person, changes the world entire."

Fast forward to the New Testament, Jesus chose 12 men after spending the night in prayer. What was His purpose? We later find out in Matthew 28:18-20, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age." "He who changes one person, changes the world entire." Jesus spent three years with these men. They were able to observe Him as he interacted with others, they were able to spend time with Him alone as he explained His teachings. Why? so they could later go out and make disciples, teaching others what they had been taught by the Master.

So, where does that leave me? What part do I play in the quote, "He who changes one person, changes the world entire." I want to be that someone who is able to change someone else so they in turn can change someone else. I want to go and make disciples.