One of the joys of serving Tri-County Ministry in rural North Dakota was my one Presyberian congregation. One year they allowed me to go with a group from the Presbytery of the Northeran Plains to visit the Chagoria Presbytery in Kenya. It was a trip of a life time for this old sailor, who has done a lot of traveling, the people I met and the things I saw will stay in my mind as long as I live. The spirituality of the people of Kenya was refreshing, and inspiring.
During our visit we were able to worship with a parish that, due to its growth, was having to break up into smaller congregations. This was certainly different than the North Dakota experience of banding together to share ministry because of shrinking congregational size. During this service I was asked to stand with the pastor as the offering was being brought forward. There were about 300 people at this worship and as each usher came forward I took the offering plate and placed them on a table. (Due to the large number of people the service was outside). After the offering plates were gathered together the ushers began bringing us bags. I looked in the first bag and there was a pineapple, the next bag had tea, then next some potatos. The pastor told me that this offering was from those folks who had no cash, but were giving "in kind" gifts to the church. I continued takeing the bags and placing them on the table.
Once all the bags had been collected, the pastor had me bring him a bag, one at a time, and he began to auction them off. It was really amazing, wathching him aution off pineapples, coffee, tea, corn and other items of produce. Finally I came to the last bag on the table. I picked the bag up and untided the loose knot and looked inside. To my surprise the bag was full of cow poop! Someone had given the church a dried "cow pie" as an offering. I am sure the people saw the surprise in my face as I looked at this gift. The pastor auctioned this wonder gift to God's chuch, cow poop, for a sum of about $2.00.
Following the service the pastor told me he knew exactly who had donated the cow poop. It was from the lady pictured below. She is a widow who lives in a mud hut on the edge of town. She has no family, and only a very thin cow in which to sustain her in life. Her only income is from the milk (barters would be a better term) and the dried cow poop she gets from this one cow. Having seen the cow, I suspect that it does not provide all that much milk, or for that matter, poop, to sustain her much above bare sustainability.
However, her gift, from the Biblical perspective of stewardship is huge. Today we read the story of the Widow's Mite from Mark. Her bag of poop was truly more that a mite, it probably represented a full "days wage."
Next time you think about cutting back, or even redirecting you giving to the church I hope you I hope you think of this little lady from Chagoria, Kenya. Each Sunday she gets up, lights her cigar, shovels up a bag of poop and heads for church. That is gratatued!
Go and do likewise!
See you next Sunday,
Pastor Ray
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