Bill and I have the privilege of being involved with an orphanage here in Thailand. We teach English at the orphanage each week, and they come to the Youth Center for Youth Group for games, food and Bible study. We ask often how we can help more, but they are reluctant to tell of their needs.
A while back we wished twin teenage girls Happy Birthday during Youth Group. A few days later, after we finished teaching English at the orphanage, one of the teenage girls started to give me a hug. Suddenly she pulled back, saying that she just remembered something, and asked if we could wait a minute. I told her we would wait, and to take her time.
She ran off to the small room that she shares with the rest of the girls that live at the orphanage. She emerged a few minutes later with two beautiful bracelets in her hands. She explained that they were for the twin girls that had just had a Birthday, and that she wanted me to give them to the girls. I told her that they were beautiful, and asked her why she didn’t want to give them to the girls herself. She just insisted that I give them to the girls for her. I finally agreed and said I would.
I then asked her where she had bought them, because I really thought they were gorgeous. She looked confused for a moment, and then told me that she had made them. She had made each one specifically for each of the girls, based on what she thought they would like.
I was amazed, and awed. Here was a young lady, who was living in an orphanage, she had just started college, and she worked to provide money for the orphanage and for school. And yet out of her generous heart she had made two bracelets that she would normally sell, and she gave them to two new friends.
She was not reluctant in giving. She was actually beaming (and yet shy), as she handed the beautiful bracelets to me.
Her giving was not about her. She did not call a press conference, so that everyone could see how generous she was. She did not even want to be the one to give the bracelets to the girls. She just wanted to give the gifts. For her, the time that it took to make the bracelets, was just part of the gift, and it gave her joy.
Wow! That all of us that have given our lives to Jesus would give with such a humble joyful heart.
We hugged and I promised that I would give the bracelets to the girls.
When I gave the bracelets to the girls, and explained who they were from. . .they were stunned. I could see how moved they were, by the generosity of someone who has had so little in the way of possessions and yet sought to share what little she had.
How humbling and grateful I am to see God’s Word in action in the life of a beautiful Thai teenage girl.
Mark 12:41-44 “And he sat down opposite the treasury and watched the people putting money into the offering box. Many rich people put in large sums. And a poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which make a penny. And he called his disciples to him and said to them, "Truly, I say to you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the offering box. For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.""
I don’t know about you, but I am feeling very challenged to live more generously.
My prayer for each of us is that we would honor and glorify God with our generous giving, and that our giving would reflect our heart.
Blessings,
April
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