INSPIRATIONAL STORY (No Greater Love)

                                       No Greater Love

   It was a quiet morning in Korea. In a small valley, there was a little wooden building with a corrugated steel roof. It was an orphanage that housed many young children who had lost their parents in the war.
   Suddenly, the quiet of the morning was shattered when a mortar shell fell and landed squarely on top of the orphanage. The roof was ripped apart by the blast and pieces of the metal roofing were blasted all through the orphanage, wounding many of the children. One little girl was hit in the leg by the flying metal and her leg was immediately amputated just below the knees. She was laying in the rubble of the orphanage quietly when they found her. A touniquet was immediately applied and a runner was sent to the MASH hospital to fetch medical help for the children.
   When the doctors and nurses arrived, they tended to the wounded children. But when the doctor noticed the little girl, he realized that her greatest need at that moment was blood. He immediately called for records from the orphanage to find someone with her blood type.
   A nurse, who could read and speak Korean, began to call out the names of all the children with the same blood type searching for someone to volunteer to donate blood.
   After a few minutes, there was a group of wide-eyed children assembled. The doctor spoke to the group, through the nurse translating, "Would one of you be willing to give this little girl your blood?"
   The children looked shocked and no one said a word.
   Again the doctor pleaded, "Please, will one of you give her your blood because if you don't, she is going to die!"
   Finally, a boy in the back of the room, raised his hand. The nurse took his hand, led him to another room, laid him down on an bed and prepared to take his blood. When the nurse asked for his arm so that she could sterilize the skin, the boy began to whimper. "Relax", she said. "It will only take a minute and won't hurt."
   When the doctor took his arm and inserted the needle, the boy began to cry. "Does that hurt?" the doctor asked. But the boy only cried louder. "I'm hurting him?" the doctor thought and he tried to ease his pain and comfort him but to no avail.
   Finally, after what seemed like a long time, the blood was drawn and the needle was remove. The little boy just laid still and sobbed.
   After the blood was given to the little girl and her condition was stabilized, the doctor, and the nurse interpreter, returned to the little boy. The nurse asked the boy, "Did it hurt?'
   The boy said, "No, it did not hurt."
   "Then why were you crying?"
   "Because I was afraid of dying." he answered.
   The doctor was stunned, "Why did you think you would die?'
   With tears in his eyes, the little boy replied, "Because I thought that in order to save her you would have to take all of my blood."
   The doctor didn't know what to say. Then he asked the boy, "But if you thought that you were going to die, why did you offer to give her your blood?"
    With tears still streaming down his face, he said, "Because she is my friend and I love her!"

John 15:13  "There is no greater love than to lay down one's life for one's friend."      NLT