A Sacrifice of Love

I heard quiet knocking on my door this morning at 7.  Not unusual for our day to begin early with visitors especially if someone has a need. I didn't hear the traditional "com licença" so I presumed it was one of our American staff. I was surprised to see beautiful and shy Fatima, one of our activistas on the other side of the door.  I suspected she came with bad news, but her beaming face told me otherwise. At 35, she has suffered more than I have the heart to recount: abandonment by her husband, single parenthood, contending with a terminal illness, an earlier battle with T.B., a mud house that melts in the rains, and a struggle to provide the greatest necessity of all - food for her daughter, granddaughter and niece.  Yet here she was, grinning from ear-to-ear, bearing a gift for me.

Inside her capulana she had carefully placed 10 pounds of rice from her machamba.  It was the first of her harvest and she wanted to give it to me.  I thought about the long hours she works walking for miles attending the needs of those in Project Life and wondered how she had found the time or energy to tend a high-maintenance rice field. I thought about the food in my refrigerator heaped with too many left-overs and the wide variety of food stacked neatly in my pantry. I thought about her meager salary of $25 per month in comparison to the cost of buying groceries in Dondo (i.e. margarine is $6 and milk is over $2 a quart).  I looked at her sweet face of joy in sharing what little she had and wanted to just sit on the kitchen floor and cry.

Later that morning, after she had left I questioned my national translator, Simone, as to why she would make such a sacrifice.  He looked at me with a sigh and answered with wisdom that those in the society of suffering can share.  "You don't give because you have a lot, and you don't hold back from giving because you have little.  You give because you love."

Oh, Father of all good gifts.....please help me to always love like that.