Yesterday, at church, our pastor prayed for all the people hurt or affected in any way by the recent horrific earthquake in Nepal.

Today as I looked at pictures of distraught people desperately looking for missing members of their families, I remembered several Asian Indians who own the gas station in my neighborhood. I have met and talked with them at other times and knew they had family over in that area, and the thought came that I should check about their families.

When I asked if his family was alright, the owner said, “Yes, thank God!” I was immediately relieved, but noticed the look of gravity on his face because of the effect on their home country land.

Returning home, I thought, “I cannot go over there and help physically, I know of no immediate way to get relief to the region, what can I do to help?”

Besides praying for them, the thought occurred to bake something and take to them as a small tangible token of compassion and care on my behalf for them and their suffering people.

They like spicy foods, so my cranberry-orange scones sounded like a good recipe to use, and I took them back to the gas station while they were still warm from the oven, and hoped there wouldn’t be anybody in line… so I could talk to them.

The store looked empty inside and I handed him my cranberry scone gift and told him that since I couldn’t go over there to help and didn’t know what else to do to ease the suffering, I was giving them this small token to let them know I cared about them and their people.

It was a heartfelt moment between two people, two different nationalities, bonding as fellow human beings with like concerns about family, life, suffering and compassion.

He was touched, I felt like crying just from the emotion of the moment, and as I turned to leave, I noticed a line of people had come in behind me, no doubt observing the whole thing. I tried quietly to get out the door.

It was back to business as usual.

Only the love of God can cause something beautiful to come from something ugly like an earthquake.