‘’Do you still not understand? Don’t you remember the five loaves for the five thousand, and how many basketfuls you gathered?’’ Matthew 16:9
Those who have taken part in a campaign to collect funds for important church projects often meet with sad disappointments and happy surprises. And sometimes, when children are involved, the seriousness of their approach to the whole matter may be so amusing that you cannot help laughing. And some stories that come from such occasions cannot easily be forgotten.
I remember having read about a little Japanese boy who went out with a very serious determination to raise “one million dollars” for a certain missionary project. He approached one gentleman who showed surprise.
“One million dollars!” he said. “That is a huge amount of money! And do you expect to collect such a large sum of money all by yourself?”
“Oh, no! There is another little boy helping me.”
Don’t laugh. Sometimes the Holy Spirit uses children to do a job which grown-ups do not know how to do.
A certain minister set out to raise one million dollars to help establish missions in poor countries. But he had no success. The people just seemed to be rather hesitant to put their hands in their pockets. He was greatly discouraged when, one day, he received a letter from a boy—it was actually a childish scrawl full of blots—and enclosed with the letter was a five-cent piece.
The letter read:
“Dear Mr. ---: I’m sure you’re going to get a million dollars for missions. And I want to help you get it, too. So here’s a nickel toward it. It’s all I’ve got right now. But if you need any more, you just call on me.”
The minister, you think, must have laughed. You think he consigned the letter to the wastepaper basket. No, he did not. Guess what he did.
To keep the congregations under his jurisdiction informed about the response to his campaign for one million dollars, the people heard new stories which the minister expected would stimulate the donors to put their hands in their pockets a little deeper. His goal was reached when the boy’s letter was read and his nickel was shown, with which he helped the minister reach his goal.
When our plans, appeals, and sermons seem to be powerless, God can still touch hearts and work miracles through unexpected means.