She walks out of her dark, mud house into the brightness of day. The coins in her hand glisten in the afternoon sun. She walks past the lake where she met her husband and her heart aches. It’s been four years since his death and life hasn’t been the same since.
She moves on towards town, where people look past her as if she doesn’t exist. Tears stream down her face as the people who claim to love the same God she does treat her like their own animals.
She reaches the temple and tosses her two coins, the last of what she owns, into the offering. Little does she know that as she turns to make her way back to her house, Jesus is across the street using her great faith as a lesson to the disciples. Mark 12:41-44
Over two thousand years later, I get to witness the same great faith in Kenya.
A few days ago, my team and I visited an IDP (internally displaced persons) camp. After a violent election in 2007, thousands of Kenyans were forced to leave their homes and seek refuge in remote locations throughout the country. This is the story of one faithful, loving woman.
Her name is Helena. She is in her eighties and because of deaths in her family, she is left widowed taking care of her great-grandchildren. Her house consisted of a rotting, wooden bed and a wooden shack to cook what little food she had. Upon our arrival, she welcomed us with a huge smile and brought out a broken wooden bench for us to sit on. Her family was forced to flee their home after the election, and ended up staying in the field that their home is now built on.
We found out that although she has been living there since 2007, she has only had her house for one year. When the government granted the refugees their land, there was no room in the community for a church. At the time, all Helena owned was the property the government had granted her. Instead of building a house like the rest of the community, she decided to give up her land so that her community would have a place to worship God.
Imagine losing everything you had and running away to a new place, where all you had were the clothes on your back. After being given land for a new start, how willing would you be to give up everything you owned for the sake of worshipping God?
I sat at Helena’s feet in amazement of her faith and obedience. In today’s world, that type of sacrifice is hard to come by.
But what if people like Helena weren’t so hard to find? How would this world be if we were willing to give God our all?
But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things- and the things that are not- to nullify the things that are… 1 Corinthians 1: 27-28
