He was the chief religious leader of the community, and the people were hungry. The COVID pandemic had put the entire country on lockdown. People were sick. The ones who had jobs were losing them. Poverty or the real threat of it was breathing down the people’s necks. How long could this go on? The supply chains were disrupted. Where would the food come from?
The local religious leader prayed and waited. Surely their friends from other areas would come and bring some sort of relief. Everyone was waiting and worrying. The religious were praying, doing the best they could in hopes their god would send some mercy their way. Surely someone would bring help. The government, their religious brothers, someone.
The days passed; the people grew restless and increasingly hopeless. They were just like every other community: on their own. The whole world was suffering, not to mention their continent, and their country that was already bearing burdens of poverty and unemployment.
Then one day, everything this man believed to be true about followers of Jesus changed dramatically. That one day Christians showed up in his community, and brought with them encouragement, prayer, and food for his neighbors. There had been a Christian worker in the area, wanting to establish a church in the community, but Christians were not welcomed in this region. They were seen as gravely mistaken, heretical, condemned. He could not believe this expression of love aimed directly at his people, who had resisted them for so long.
“Who are you?” He asked the men distributing food and other goods. They replied that they were part of a Christian ministry called Sports Friends, and they wanted to help. They knew this community was in need, and the man who had been visiting them and wanting to build a church was their friend.
There was a monumental shift in the man’s heart toward the people who follow Jesus; and because he was the chief religious leader in the village, there was a monumental shift for the entire population. “If this is what the Christians do, I want them here,” he declared. He gave the local Christian workers land to build a church right next to the place of worship where he led. It was quickly constructed, and people are already gathering there to worship Jesus!
God used two men carrying bags of grain and bottles of soap to open an entire village to receive the love of Christ, to build up the church in a previously hostile village, and even to establish for them their own house of worship. Who is the Lord asking you to love? What little thing is He asking you to give, so that He can use it in ways you couldn’t imagine?