Fields of Grace

Greetings from Rwanda. As I write, it’s Sunday 16 August, and I’ve just listened to Colleen’s message in our Ruth series on the principle of “gleaning”: the call not merely to give our leftovers, but to provide generously; materially, relationally, and through the safety of a welcoming community. It is a powerful challenge.

I’ve just been with Prison Fellowship Zambia reviewing the livelihoods programme we’re partnering with them to implement. The programme walks highly vulnerable families through a three-year pathway from poverty toward stability: growing food organically, learning to manage resources, receiving entrepreneurship training, accessing small grants, and  joining community savings and loans groups– all wrapped by one-on-one mentoring and peer support groups.

I sat in the home of Jennipher and her husband. Three years ago, already living hand to mouth, they had twins. Then Jennipher’s brother was incarcerated, and his wife abandoned their six-year-old child. She and her husband took their nephew in, but life became even harder. Oppressed by their landlord, they fell into severe poverty. PFZ began helping them support the child, and Jennipher entered the livelihoods programme.

She learned to grow food around her home– enough to feed her family, share with neighbours, and sell the surplus. She joined the resource management training, became cashier of a community savings group, started a small business, began raising animals to sell, and is now completing business training with plans to expand. Her family's resilience to withstand shocks is growing every month. More than that, Agnes now mentors ten other families each month. They trust her because she is walking the same road.

Her family is not yet out of the woods, but their generosity toward a vulnerable child has been met by the generosity and safety of a community who sees them and has provided an environment in which they can flourish and support their own community. 
What about us? Are we giving our dregs, or, like Boaz, are we going beyond the minimum and giving generously? Who among us is vulnerable, lonely, poor, sick, widowed, fatherless, motherless, or a foreigner navigating a strange land? Are we a safe, patient, generous, supportive place where they are seen and can flourish?

Adam