October 5, 2019
AN EXTRAORDINARY GIFT
Jocelyn Logan
MMM Co-founder
“Here is a boy here with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many?”
John 6:9
MMM provided 47,000 110-pound bags of maize during the famine of 2015-16 that ravaged many communities during the El Nina drought in central and northern Malawi. Forty-seven thousand families were fed for a month, or were there more?
The most vulnerable, the elderly, widows, mothers with small children were chosen by the Traditional Authority and church leaders. Many fathers had left their villages in search of food. We followed the lorry truck loaded with 200 bags of maize to the distribution point for the 200 selected families that were waiting patiently. I was surprised to see 1782 families seated on the ground who had traveled many miles with the hope they too might get maize.
The selected family names were called out. The first, an old man with a cane, weathered face, struggling to walk to the table where he put his thumb print on the paper that bore his name. He was followed by a frail old woman, and then a thin mother with a baby strapped to her back, each signed and received a voucher. When I saw the mother, I was reminded of the discussion I had with a senior church official. The anguish he felt when babies cried constantly because nursing mothers had no milk. The scene was repeated over and over. With their precious vouchers, they and their helpers came to the lorry and lifted the maize bags on top of their heads. Young children with small plastic bowls scrambled to pick up every precious kernel that spilled on the ground. Their usual gleeful smiles replaced by the intensity of this task. I felt overwhelming sorrow and heartbreak.
I looked over and saw a small group with small bags open, and the chosen recipient with children to feed for a month was sharing her maize with others in her village. There is only enough in one bag to feed a family of 6. Yet, how could she eat while her neighbor starved? Perhaps, she felt her family might get by with one meal a day. I witnessed the same type of sharing over and over across the road and behind the church building.
Application Question: “No act of love is ever small” (Mother Teresa). What simple act of kindness “done with great love” can we do today?
Prayer: Loving God, thank You for revealing Yourself to us through “the least of these.” An ordinary gift of a bag of maize, became an extraordinary gift of life for so many. Your resources are never too little to serve God’s people.
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