Leading by Example
Tom, an assistant pastor at Community Christian Church (CCC) at Ole tukat Village, recently attended a meeting with pastors from his denomination to plan regional activities and projects for the year. Among other projects, each year the pastors hold an offering to pool money together from all of the churches to purchase a motor bike for one of the pastors in the group. In Maasai-land, motor bikes provide an affordable mode of transportation for pastors to get to church on Sundays and visit church members in their homes. It was Tom’s turn to receive a motor bike with the special offering. Tom, however, had something else in mind. This is his story.
As they continued with the discussion, the church leaders asked about my thoughts concerning the motor bike project. They asked if the motor bike would be helpful to my ministry. I told them that it would be helpful, but that I had a different idea.
I told them that at AfricaHope we have been studying the book of Acts. One thing I learned about the early church is that they sold properties and brought the money to the church. The money was used to help the poor, orphans, and widows in the church.
I asked the leaders if we have poor, orphans, and widows in our church. They answered, “Yes.” I asked, “Do we do as the first church in the Bible did?” They answered, “No.” So I asked them if this is something that would be good for us to start doing, and they agreed that it was. I told them the contribution that was meant to buy me a motor bike should be used instead to support the poor, orphans, and widows in the church, and we began planning a special offering day.
When the special offering date arrived, we got a good amount of money. We selected the neediest children in the church and supported them by paying the school fees for three children and buying clothes and shoes for four other children. This the first time the church has done something like that in our area, so everyone in the community heard about it and the people were so happy.
When word spread about the offering, other churches came to our church leaders and asked how they could start providing for the poor, orphans, and widows in their own churches. We praise God that what we did has been a good example to the body of Christ and the entire community. So far, there are two other denominations holding special offerings so that they can help the needy people in their churches. Thank God that our churches are beginning to learn and do the things written in the Bible. Amen.
