A Gift of Love

     One of my favorite Christmas stories has to do with a missionary in Africa.  Before Christmas she had been telling the students how Christians, in happiness, gave presents to others on the occasion of Christ's birthday.

     A few days later, on Christmas morning, one of these native students brought the missionary a beautiful, lustrous sea shell.  When asked where he had discovered such an extraordinary shell, he said he had walked many miles to a certain ocean bay, the only spot where such shells could be found.  

     She exclaimed, "What a beautiful gift!  It must have been a real sacrifice for you to have travelled so far to get it."

    His eyes brightened as he replied, "Long walk, part of gift!"