Summer Message: True Riches

by Pastor Eliot Fay

The following is an adaptation of a story originally recounted by Mr. Edward Egon. I think the

message is clear and heartwarming and its impact would only be reduced by additional

explanation from me. Let me only say that I offer this story not to challenge, but to commend

and encourage you in an area in which you excel. Generosity often isn’t a characteristic

associated with church communities – however, it is a joy to see it reflected in so well in ours!

Happy Summer...

It was 1946. I was 14, my little sister Ocy was 12, and my older sister Darlene was 16. We

lived at home with our mother, and the four of us knew what it was to do without many things.

That winter, the pastor of our church announced that a special offering would be taken to help

a poor family. He asked everyone to save and give generously. When we got home, we talked

about what we could do. We decide to buy 50 pounds of potatoes and live on them for a

month. This would allow us to save $20 of our grocery money for the offering. We thought that

if we kept our electric lights turned out and didn't listen to the radio we'd save money on that

month's electric bill. Darlene got as many house and yard cleaning jobs as possible, and both

of us babysat for everyone we could. For 15 cents we could buy enough cotton loops to make

three potholders to sell for $1. We made $20 on potholders.

Every day we counted the money to see how much we had saved. At night we'd sit in the dark

and talk about how much the poor family was going to enjoy having the money the church

would give them...

The day before the offering was collected, Ocy and I walked to the grocery store and got

three crisp $20 bills and one $10 bill for all our change. We ran all the way home to show

Mom and Darlene. We had never had so much money. That night we were so excited we

could hardly sleep. We didn't care that we wouldn't have new clothes for Easter; we had $70

for the special offering. We could hardly wait to get to church!

...When the offering was taken, we were sitting on the second row from the front. Mom put in

the $10 bill, and each of us kids put in a $20 bill....At lunch Mom had a surprise for us. She

had bought a dozen eggs and we had boiled eggs with our fried potatoes!

Late that afternoon the minister drove up in his car. Mom went to door, talked with him for a

moment, and then came back with an envelope in her hand. We asked what it was, but she

didn't say a word. She opened the envelope and out fell money. There were three crisp $20

bills, one $10 bill and seventeen $1 bills. Mom put the money back in the envelope. We didn't

talk, but just sat and stared at the floor... I knew we didn't have a lot of things that other people

had, but I'd never thought we were poor...

Finally on Saturday, Mom asked us what we wanted to do with the money. What did poor

people do with money? We didn't know. We'd never known we were poor. We didn't want to

go to church on Sunday, but Mom said we had to. Although it was a sunny day, we didn't talk

on the way. At church we had a missionary speaker. He talked about how churches in Africa

made buildings out of sun-dried bricks, but they needed money to buy roofs. The minister

said, "Can't we all sacrifice to help these poor people?" We looked at each other and smiled

for the first time in a week. Mom reached into her purse and pulled out the envelope with the

$87... and put it in the offering. At the end of the service, when the offering was counted, the

minister jubilantly announced that $95 had been collected. The missionary was thrilled. He

hadn't imagined such a large offering from our small church and said, "You must have some

rich people in this church!" ...and he was right.