Opportunity

Thursday is laundry day when I take our bag of washing down the street to Cheryl at the waserie. I was getting ready to leave with it when a coloured lady appeared at the open half door.

"Can I speak with you?" she asked.
I went outside and sat on a bench with her.
Her name was Charline. In January her husband had died after being bedridden for over two years, leaving her with three teenage children. She had no job, though she was proactively looking, her landlady was threatening to put her and her children out of the hut they lived in and onto the streets unless she got some money that day, her children went to school without eating; she wasn't asking for money but did I have work for her?

This week I'd been convicted by the actions of one of the students at Hugenote College.  He's from a township in Cape Town so not flush with money, but he'd taken a homeless man into the local Spa, bought him food, talked to him and trusted God for his own provision.

That morning it had struck me that though we were giving regularly, it wasn't up to ten percent for God. It's all very well to say our whole lives as overseas workers are for him but I don't think that excuses us from sharing what he's graciously provided for us with those who are in greater need.  I'd asked him what he wanted me to do. When Charline turned up at my door that morning saying she didn't know why she'd come but she prayed every day that God would provide, I thought it might be connected.  What would you have done?

I was curious so asked how she'd survived previously as she'd had no job because she was caring full time for her sick husband.  She told me that then many people had helped by bringing food and other necessities.  Once he'd died nobody came; she and the children were forgotten and left to care for themselves.  Another lesson perhaps?