It was our last ministry day in Mozambique and our contact, Eli, had invited us to his home for a meal and fellowship with the neighborhood children and widows who will soon benefit from the orphanage we had been working on. Everyone was excited to be doing something different, celebrating January’s birthday and getting to know Eli and his community more. I walked out of his house and noticed this sweet lady, Amelia, hand washing large beautiful pieces of blue and red fabric for their church. I greeted her and was really excited when she responded in almost perfect English. Amelia’s 25, loves her community and has a smile that shines for Jesus. She spoke words of encouragement to me as I explained the journey I’m on. Then she took off her beautiful red rose earrings and put them in my ears.
I realized in that moment how powerful giving to others [selflessly] from the heart is. I did not need her earrings and had done absolutely nothing to deserve them but she chose to give what she had to represent our friendship and that was a blessing to receive.
Every day since then I’ve been asking myself if I’m a generous giver, from the heart – trusting the Lord to give me opportunities to bless others when I can and with whatever I have to give – or if I’ve been selfishly holding onto the “things” that I do own? I’d love to say I’ve given without second thought since that day but, sadly I have not.
It's been like two months since this happened and I still have her on my heart and knew I needed to write it out in a blog. Precious people and lessons like this genuinely make this year of abandonment worth it because they’ve gotten into me and are changing me [slowly] from the inside out.
