Evendays

From Lamin Sanneh’s Whose Religion is Christianity?, pages 64-65:

News of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, did not reach the tribe until a Maasai student returned from the United States to his people with the story some eight months after the fact. Using Maasai narrative form, the student carefully recounted the scale and details of the attacks, including people jumping from windows to escape the fires, and the thousands who perished. This so moved the Maasai that they staged a solemn ceremony in an open field where they blessed fourteen cows as a gift in sympathy to the people of the United States, pledging with their bows and arrows to hunt down the terrorists in question. A bemused senior U.S. embassy official in Nairobi made the trek through the bush to receive the cows. The heart, the sages say, is the toughest part of the body. Tenderness is in the hands. A public acknowledgment of the gift was subsequently broadcast on National Public Radio (June 8, 2002). It spoke of the gratitude of the American people for the generosity and thoughtfulness of the Maasai. You cannot put a price on such gestures of hands extended in friendship, nor count in number their interpersonal effect.

Two of our kids have tutoring jobs that earn them some pocket money and keep them off the streets. Recently, a couple who often visit the church told about a project they carry out in Equator (where she’s from) every Christmastime. They prepare food baskets for poor families and distribute them in the name of Jesus.

They asked us if we wanted to participate. So I told the kids about it, thinking they’d like (all together) to offer one of the $16.00 baskets. They surprised us by springing for a basket each.

Before Wife took the money over to our friends, the kids had been talking and decided they wanted to buy five baskets. So they each chipped in a bit more and Wife delivered the cash.

A little boy attends church with his single mom. He’s 5 and loves Son 2. They didn’t make it to worship this morning, but dropped by when several of us were eating together. The boy had brought a busted up Christmas candle as a gift to Son 2, who then offered the little guy a Christmas dream gift: a ping-pong paddle, picked out, planned for, and purchased by Son 2.

So, I raise my glass and give three cheers to generosity, for it lives on. And I thank our generous God for the riches he has given us in Jesus.