simple act

Last night I heard a fairly nice story that I'd like to share:

A few years ago, an American with Gideons International went down to Bolivia to partner with a local gideon group and share at a nearby church. Part of the sharing included a love offering at the end to help the local gideon group fund the purchase of new bibles. A basket was placed in front of the congregation, and members of the church each came up and gave what they could.

After the offering had been collected and counted, the lady at the church handed the American the money collected, and a small pair of shiny earrings. They weren't sure who put the earrings in the offering plate, and they asked around to see who it was. After a while, a young girl came up to talk to the american. She didn't have any earrings on, and it was apparent from the color of her outfit that she was the one who had given the earrings. She said that the earrings were meant to be a placeholder, and asked if the man could wait while she went home to get something else to put in the plate. The man obliged, and she ran home and returned with an elaborate set of magnificently decorated feather earrings. She said, this was her most prized possession, and was all that she could give, as she didn't have any money. The American got choked up, and couldn't really say anything. He graciously accepted the offereing, and thanked her.

Later, he returned to the US, and continued sharing at various churches throughout the country, bringing the feather earrings as an example of offerings that they have accepted, telling the story as part of his brief sharing to churches. Within the next year, the pair of feather earrings had contributed to that Gideon collecting enough offerings to purchase 70,000+ bibles!

At the end of 2007, the man was getting ready to return to Bolivia to share at a few churches again, and he had intended on bringing the feather earrings back to the girl, and let her know how much her most prized possession had contributed to the cause of distributing bibles. As he walked in to the church, apparently the entire church had gathered (they had heard the american was back) except for the little girl, as she was away at school at the time.

He approached the pastor to tell him of the situation over the last year, explaining that the feather earring example had helped him fund the purchase of so many bibles, and had asked him to return the earrings to the girl, as it was her most prized possession. The pastor then told the American that he only knew half of the story. The previous year, when the American had spoken at their church, the congregation was on the decline. People weren't really caring about ministry at church, prayer and reliance on God was at an all-time low, giving was almost non-existent, and the general spiritual health of the congregation was decaying. After the girl had given up her feathered earrings, the story had spread throughout the congregation about her loving act, and the story spurred a spiritual revival within that church. Over that year, the congregation had improved in many ways spiritually, and by the time the American had come to visit and return the earrings, the church was getting ready to send their first missionaries to nearby Ecuador.

I like this story for so many reasons, the most important of which is that through this little girl's act of worship in giving up her most prized possession, God takes it and uses it as a catalyst for something so much greater. I hope this story warmed your heart a bit as it did mine.