Faithful With A Little…

Laura with new friends

"His master replied, well done good and faithful servant. You have been faithful with a few things. I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master's happiness." (Matthew 25:21).

Today (Sunday, February 18) we ventured out to one of the Pigmy villages that we and ICDI are partnering with. Farel, our driver and one of ICDI's employees, told us that he had spoken with the village on Wednesday before we came. He told them that in order for us to partner with them, they needed to clear out about an acre of land and start digging the latrine. When we arrived there today (Sunday), the chief of the Pigmy village led us to a plot of land that had over an acre cleared and a latrine dug down at least 7 feet!! They accomplished all of this in four days!

If you could have seen the pride these pygmy men had in showing our team their work. These are the people who are despised by the rest of the Central Africans. These are the people that are overlooked and forgotten. But through the prompting of the Holy Spirit some through ICDI and our church were faithful to show the love of Christ to these people and begin partnering with them. And how did they respond? With gratitude and a work ethic unmatched by most. If you look at the picture you will realize even how much more amazing digging that latrine was. All they had is one pick with no handle (Blogger's note: a six inch spud bar. I saw how they do it, which is not much different from the way we did it in Brazil when I was growing up. Hard work indeed!).

On our end, God had prompted Tim Harley to buy a pick and some shovels before we left to give wherever the Spirit led. And when we saw these pygmies and what they had worked with so hard and so faithfully, we knew that this was the place to give these tools. When we gave them the tools, their faces were filled with gratitude and joy. Smiles as big as you can believe emerged on the men's faces. Tom took this opportunity to explain to these men how God says that those who are faithful with a little, God blesses and gives more responsibility. Just as they were faithful to the work they did, God was faithful to bless them with more tools. What an awesome tangible Biblical lesson we could share with them! Please pray that they would continue to be faithful with what God has blessed them with and that we back in Wooster would be faithful to how God has called us to get involved here.

Faithful with little story

Laura Gibson