Besides the actual cash, these gifts are encouragement to us as well. Sarah had many of her Spring speaking engagements cancelled due to weather and then we were told not to apply for a grant to help women with cervical cancer, she and I – at least – were bummed. This feels like an answer to prayer.
I have been in the States with my parents for the last week. Daddy and I listened to a televised Bible study. It was on tithing. The message repeated over and over was “tithe and God will bless you beyond your wildest dreams…maybe not now but later.” The reality is that if I did not see the poor day in and day out, I might agree with him, because I grew up with Mama teaching me that we were to give 10% to those in need and then we were not to worry because God would take care of our needs….and the Matching Challenge and the response certainly feels like this.
The problem is that I see desperately poor people sharing their meager resources with others. Taking people into their home and sharing the little food they have is a common occurrence; in fact, poor Nicaraguans do not understand in the U.S., the land of plenty, there can be homeless people…homeless! Because here in Nicaragua, people take in those with nowhere else to go.
The poor know that in order to survive, they have to depend on each other…they have to share. And they share even though it might mean that the next day they do not have enough to eat. Unlike the Bible lesson for that day, the poor give more than 10% and they continue to worry because they are not taken care of…they are not blessed beyond their wildest dreams…they remain poor, hungry, desperate.
But I believe that, for whatever it is worth, they are held close to the heart of the Divine and are loved tenderly, deeply and…
The rest of us are called to relieve their pain…it is the right thing…the humane thing to do…and our blessing? Well, doing the right thing is power in and of itself. -Kathleen
*Next week we will write about plans for this money.
