{"id":4936,"date":"2017-02-16T10:05:57","date_gmt":"2017-02-16T10:05:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/joel-mcmartin\/?p=4936"},"modified":"2017-02-16T10:05:57","modified_gmt":"2017-02-16T10:05:57","slug":"two-coins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/joel-mcmartin\/2017\/02\/16\/two-coins\/","title":{"rendered":"Two Coins"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The story in the gospel of the widow with her 2 coins has started to come alive to me recently as I have traveled around visiting some of our families. \u00a0One of my favorite parts of my ministry and talking with missionary moms. \u00a0There are a lot of challenges that missionary moms face. \u00a0Sure there is a lot carried by missionary dads as well, but I just have a soft spot for those moms. \u00a0One of the challenges for missionary moms is that there is no separation between home, work and ministry. \u00a0The second challenge is that daily life takes so much more time. \u00a0So life becomes this big balancing act. \u00a0It is all the little things that add up making life crazy. \u00a0It is the clothes that need hung up on the line rather than just thrown in the dryer, it is the water that needs to get filtered so that it is drinkable, it is the flour, rice and beans that all need sifting, it the home schooling that needs grading, it is the floors that need sweeping everyday, and I could go on and on. \u00a0There are so many pieces of life claiming our time. \u00a0On top of that we didn’t come to West Africa to just live here, we came with a mission in mind. \u00a0Living life is not enough, there are people around us who are lost. \u00a0Yet, honestly, there is so much work to be done before relationships are even a possibility in a new context. \u00a0So how does that all fit together? \u00a0That is the challenge that so many missionary moms face daily.<\/p>\n

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Ministry through relationships is our goal<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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But to get there , there is so much to be learned<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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As relationships by definition is living life together<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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All of this takes time, which is hard to come by<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
When just living takes so much time<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

6 months ago I visited a mom who was struggling with just that. \u00a0Since arriving back to the field she had not been able to start language study because of the challenges she was facing just managing life at home. \u00a0When we sat down together and talked I told her to throw out the ideal picture of how she would do language learning and lets figure out how to make something possible with what she had. \u00a0I encouraged her to not wait until she had 10 dollar bills to give, but to take the 2 coins she had to and give that to God. \u00a0Because even with 2 fish and 5 loaves God managed to feed the 5000, so it is not the quantity of what we have to give, but it is a question of whether we are ready to give all we have.<\/p>\n

This past month I had the privilege of visiting her again. \u00a0My heart was singing in this visit, because she had given her 2 coins. \u00a0Her greatest commodity right now is time and energy. \u00a0She had limited of that to spare, but she had given what she had. \u00a0God was taking that and blessing it. \u00a0The progress she was making was remarkable when compared with the time she was able to put in. \u00a0There are times that we can write out a formula for what needs to happen to reach a goal and then there are times that God rips that up and says, “Give me what you got and I will work with that”. \u00a0She had given the little time that she had and from that we could see the fruits of progress in language and most importantly in the relationships she was forming with people around her.<\/p>\n

I left that trip, challenged to reflect back on my own life and ministry. \u00a0In the story of the widow Jesus didn’t look at the quantity of coins that the widow was giving, but at the fact that it was all she had. \u00a0The gift is most precious to God is when we give what we have even when is seems like nothing much. \u00a0My tendency is to wait until I have more to give, or until I have feel more together, but I am learning that I need to just give what I have and let God take care of the rest.<\/p>\n

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May we learn to be as faithful with what we have as the widow with her 2 coins and the little boy with his fishes and loaves. \u00a0<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The story in the gospel of the widow with her 2 coins has started to come alive to me recently as I have traveled around visiting some of our families. \u00a0One of my favorite parts of my ministry and talking with missionary moms. \u00a0There are a lot of challenges that missionary moms face. \u00a0Sure there […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":830,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2545],"tags":[448,637],"class_list":{"0":"post-4936","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-updates-and-news","7":"tag-ethnos360","8":"tag-new-tribes-mission","9":"entry"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/joel-mcmartin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4936","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/joel-mcmartin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/joel-mcmartin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/joel-mcmartin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/830"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/joel-mcmartin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4936"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/joel-mcmartin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4936\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/joel-mcmartin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/joel-mcmartin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/joel-mcmartin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}