He was sitting in the front row… was he here last week? Had I missed him? This man was sitting in the front row of the choir… but when the choir stood up to sing he kept sitting. I looked to his legs and saw that they were very skinny and somewhat deformed. But the joy he sang with and his smile were unreal. Then we began to pray… and when you pray in this church you get on your knees before God. I see him drop to his knees and his story becomes a little more clear. It looks like he was born with leg problems and spent so much time kneeling that his feet bent inward and molded to the shape of his butt. I hope that made sense… it’s not untypical of people we have seen begging on the streets. They don’t receive surgeries and therapies when they are young and it just becomes their shape.
Then we came to the part in the service where they collect offering. Just like churches in America… only completely different. They start with a few people standing up and saying what they are thankful for and bringing their offering forward. Then the singing begins… people are singing and dancing up the aisles bringing forward their he. Later in the service they do it again. We were floored our first Sunday there when their second offering was presented to our team. They apologized that it probably wasn’t even enough for a loaf of bread but they sincerely hoped it blessed us.
We reached the point where the dancing up the aisles begin. My eyes were drawn back to the man I had been admiring. He awkwardly shifted to get into his pockets. He found his coins… and he began to pull himself across the floor. He would put his hands on the floor in front of him and pull his legs forward to catch up. He inched over to the plate, put in his offering, and shuffled himself back. The already huge smile on his face grew even larger.
I tend to be a pretty generous person… but when I am in this church I start to wonder… would I be as generous if I had less. What if I had nothing and I was just trying to make sure my family was fed? Would I be singing and dancing up the aisles bringing my treasures? Could I really be the woman Jesus talks about who gives her last 2 coins? What about the woman who washed Jesus feet with expensive oil? What would church in America look like if we were dancing before God offering him literally everything we have?
