I Just Received 55 Billion Dollars

Seriously. I was just given $55 billion in currency from Zimbabwe, which is worth absolutely nothing. Abby and I are blessed to be staying with Mac and Elsa van den Berg, the directors of Eagle's Nest Christian school in Polokwane, South Africa this week. Mac gave me the $55 billion tonight as a gift because he picked it up off the road last week in Zimbabwe. He was taking food rations to the country last week and saw the currency flying out of a bus in front of him. He drove up next to the bus to let them know that money was blowing out the windows and they literally laughed at him and told him it was worth nothing. He later bought a Coke for $3 billion.

Zimbabwe is in the news around the world, but here in South Africa on the border, the news is reality. The people in Zimbabwe literally have nothing. The government has seized most everything, and the people are starving. Tonight a friend of Mac's, Thaddeus, a church planter in Zimbabwe, came over because he was in South Africa buying food to take back to Zimbabwe tomorrow.

What do you say to a pastor from Zimbabwe who is sitting down to dinner with you for his first meal of the day and he asks you, "What is America like?" and "What is the Church there like?" He got his first pair of shoes when he was 21 and his truck is full of meally-meal that most American Christians wouldn't feed to their pets . . . what do you say to a guy like this?

We sat there and talked for awhile and during our conversation, my mind drifted to the prayer that I utter every Sunday morning with the rest of the Church--"Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy Name, Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread . . ." What? Have I ever really meant it? Will I ever say it again? How would Thadeus say this prayer?

Thaddeus will be the first to tell you that Zimbabwe needs more than food--it needs the hope that only Christ offers. But it does need food. Statistics got a face tonight. Real people are really starving. God's Word is clear, "But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth" (1 John 3:17-18) I'm not sure how much we will give or how we will go about it, but I am sure that I cannot do nothing and continue to call myself a Christian.

Paul once wrote that the "His grace was not without effect." Lord may your grace have collossal effect in our lives!