The Offering

Some year’s back I built a Church out in the country at a place called Boutin. I was there for a service and was impressed to receive an offering. Now there was not one person in the service that had a job so they didn’t have much money. I went ahead and received the offering. It probably came to about $2.00 in U.S. money so it wasn’t much but it was given from the heart and that was what counted. Anyway, a fellow came up to me and said, “Pastor Bob, drive by my place and before you leave. I drove up in front of a little two room mud hut with a thatched roof. His wife invited me in and offered me a little chair. Well, I am a big guy and I knew I would break the chair if I sat down so I told her I had rather stand. They had a little table with a very clean white cloth on it in one corner with a couple of drinking glasses and a little vase with a flower in it. That along with a couple of chairs was all the furniture they had. The floors were dirt but they were clean for she kept them swept several times a day. In the second room, which was their bedroom, there was nothing. Overhead I saw some straw mats rolled up. At night they unrolled them on the floor and that is where they slept. While I was talking to his wife I head the man outside and there was a terrible noise. He had caught a rooster and the rooster didn’t like it. He came in the hut and handed me the rooster. Now, I don’t like roosters and never did, at least not since the time I was flogged by one as a child. He said, I wasn’t able to give in the offering but I felt like giving this rooster.” I told him to lay it in the back of the pickup and that God would bless him. On the way into town God spoke to my heart and said that He was going to bless that man and his wife and that he was going to use me to do it. When I got to town I went to a mattress factory. I purchased a full size frame, box springs, mattress, bed covers and two pillows. A few days later I took them to their house and helped set it up in the vacant bedroom. Once the covers and pillows were on the bed, it looked real nice and they were beside themselves with joy. I rode away from there knowing the reason I had received the offering. What ever happened to the rooster you might ask? Well when I got into another area I set him free. For all I know he enjoyed a full life after that but I doubt it. There were too many hungry people around who would just love “Coq au Vin” without the Vin. (NOTE: This is not the actual rooster Adelle is holding but he bears a strong resemblance to the one in question)