STORY: Blacks And Whites by Dr. Fredrik Schlotz

Story title: Blacks And Whites
By: Dr. Fredrik Schlotz

    Some years ago a missionary revisited a congregation in Tanzania. After the service, the pastor called upon the oldest member of the congregation to present the gift they had for the visitor. Barefoot and dressed in tattered clothes, the man carried in his crippled hands a baton carved from ebony wood and wrapped in an old newspaper. Ebony is normally very black, but there may be light spots where branches have grown out of the tree's trunk. The baton had a sizeable light spot at one end.

Standing before the guest with the gift, old man made a speech, "Here I stand, a black man created by God. There you stand, a white man created by God. In this baton there is a light spot. It is not a different wood but is of one piece. Likewise, the black man and the white man are one in Christ."
    In these words the African elder had quickly lifted us up to the ranks of nobility: man redeemed by the same Christ.