I was reminded once again how much we are missing here in America as I encountered the riches of our Adventist family from around the world. My lifetime friend, Glenn Russell, came to the General Conference Session each weekend to visit the many friends he has served and lived with around the world—the most recent being from Zimbabwe. Each time he returned to my room, he showed me another gift, carried the difficult and long journey, and presented to him as a token of love.

Glenn would shake his head and say, "I don't know what to do. I know the personal sacrifice this gift represents. These people have no money, and yet they bring me gifts."

I, too, have been overwhelmed by the loving, sacrificial gifts of people I've met in impoverished countries. One of my cherished gifts is a small, well-used plastic bag of raw peanuts in the shell. It was given to me by a dear great-grandma in Purima, Guyana. A direct descendant of the Sabbath keepers O.E. Davis encountered deep in the interior nearly a hundred years ago, her grateful heart gave me all she could give—peanuts from her own garden.

Whether in the Dominican Republic, Honduras, Venezuela, Guyana, Colombia, India, or the Philippines, each time the loving and generous people I have met have out-given me. Their personal sacrifices always represent a much larger percentage of their worth than mine.

The part that puzzles me, and amazes the young people I take along on these trips, is how happy these people are with what we consider to be so little, and how eager and delighted they are to sacrifice in order to give.

I have heard over and over again, by members and leaders alike, how much the church in North America has given to the world church. But somehow I think in the ledgers of Heaven, we have a long, long way to catch up. The more we have the harder it seems to acknowledge all we have is His.

Gary Burns is the Lake Union Herald editor.