Before getting into the story I want to make it clear no one was hurt and everyone’s ok. As the teams treasurer I am responsible for handling and stewarding our teams finances. Coming into this month we were told Zimbabwe was in a cash shortage and getting money would be tough, so prior to getting here, before leaving Malawi we withdrew as much money as we could. The problem was we had to exchange it all over from the Malawian currency, “Kwatcha” to USD which Zimbabwe uses as their currency.
So the morning of departure from Malawi I withdrew as much money as I could, combined it with what I had left over from the end of the month and took it to the bank to exchange. It wasn’t until today that I recognized the gap in my actual cash on hand and what I was supposed to have. I tried to figure out where that gap came from and after about 6-7 hours of work I came to the conclusion that the only possible place where we could have lost this money was at the exchange office.
Even with taking into account the natural loss of money when you do an exchange I found out we were missing an additional 100,000 Kwatcha which equals about $140. The man at the exchange office pocketed 100,000 and exchanged the rest. I was not feeling very well that morning so I did not count it myself I just trusted the bank teller. Once I ran the numbers today and found out how much I gave him vs how much he actually exchanged for me I found the difference and I was devastated. $140 of our team money was robbed by the bank teller and it was my fault. I trusted him and I should have counted it myself before handing it over.
Doing this treasurer position and doing it well is something I take a lot of pride in and realizing how much I screwed up really made me furious at myself. I hate letting people down and I hate failing. I did not properly handle God’s money that I was entrusted with. I was filled with this frustration at myself for being so inadequate at my job.
After emailing my boss back at AIM home base in Atlanta we had a team worship session. Something I’ve always struggled with was coming to Christ when I messed up or made a mistake. Worship, honestly, was the last thing I wanted to do.
Things got worse when my teammate Ethan, who was leading the worship session, challenged everyone to think of and say one thing they were thankful for. Coming into worship from a place anger and frustration at myself, I was honestly not in a mood to be spiritually focused.
But as the songs started my mind started wandering and then I received a feeling of peace and thankfulness.
I realized that in these times where I am clumsy and make mistakes or mess up accidentally is where I can recognize further the love God has for us all.
Working with numbers and stewarding money is something that I consider to be a strength and I couldn’t even do that right.
I could choose to remain angry at myself or I can choose to take heart and celebrate the fact that God still loves me and wants to work with me despite the fact that I am consistently imperfect and not worthy of working with a God who is so worthy and beyond perfect.
This doesn’t mean that I can’t or shouldn’t learn from my mistake. Instead this means I can choose to be excited that I still have room to grow, even in what I believe to be my strengths. He always loves to see us strive to be better than we were before, and often times it’s only when we mess up do we realize our imperfections. It’s only once we realize those imperfections do we learn how we can improve ourselves.
I want to take this opportunity to encourage you all to find joy in your mistakes. Rejoice when you find what makes you more broken and imperfect than you thought because God loves you at your strongest and at weakest. In other words, God loves you at your best, but He died for you at your worst.
God’s power is made perfect in our weakness, and when we are compared to His perfection, isn’t everything about us and our imperfection a weakness? And yet He chooses to work with us anyway to show His power and love.
It’s kind of ironic to throw this on at the end of a blog where I talk about how I miss handled money, but I still need more support. I posted a picture on Monday saying how I needed $1,562 more, $700 was donated within the next 30 hours. Your support has blown me away. I am now $862 away from being fully funded! That’s just 18 more people to donate $50. Thank you for your help!
