Luke 21:1-4

“As he looked up, Jesus saw the rich putting their gifts into the temple treasury. He also saw a poor widow put in two very small copper coins. ‘I tell you the truth,’ he said, ‘this poor widow has put in more than all the others. All these people gave their gifts out of their wealth; but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on.’”

 

      In 1995, I lived in Bogota, Colombia, in South America and had the great privilege of serving in a ministry to street children. This ministry had three phases; a center in the heart of the city where the children could come off of the street for the first time, a home and school in the city, and a farm outside of the city. The entire ministry had a yearly budget of $8000 a year. A street child could go to school and have a warm meal for about $1.25 a day. When they did not receive enough money to meet their budget things had to go undone. The teachers at the school literally taught for love, as many times their salary was delayed for months and they would simply go on teaching each day.

 

      In 1999, I lived in a village in Senegal called Fissel. It was a Sereer village. Among my neighbors there was one family made up of a grandmother and her two granddaughters. Astu was a precious 8 year old and Tekas was a lovely teenager. They lived in a hut across from me and worked in their field each day. Sometimes I would give them a small gift of food or clothes and without fail soon afterwards Astu would show up at my gate with a gift from them. I knew if they brought me food, their dinner was thinner that night. Once, Astu brought me a small jar of black eyed peas that she had picked from their field and shelled herself. Later, when the water in my cement brick house was all gone, the teenage girls in my neighborhood would help me by walking a mile to the well, hauling up water in buckets from deep in the well, placing large tubs of water on their heads, and walking a mile back to our neighborhood to my house. The going rate for this hard labor was only equal to about 25 cents in American dollars. One day three teenage girls showed up at my gate to carry water for me and among them was Tekas. I gave each of them the Senegalese coin for their work. Later that afternoon, I heard a loud knock on my gate and went out to find Astu and her grandmother who seemed a little miffed at me. The grandmother had the coin in her hand. She gave it back to me and said to me in the Sereer language, “We are your friends.” Even though I knew they could use that money to buy food for a week, she would not take it because they were helping me as my friends. What precious friendship is this!