But this woman takes the little she has, makes what is asked for and is supplied her every need!

Perhaps it is easy to think of projects where we take what is seemingly very little and that little bit has the potential to turn things around in others' lives. We read and hear from UNICEF how pennies make a huge difference in children's lives. We know how $10 which will buy a mosquito net has multiplied into millions and millions of dollars through the combined efforts first of the United Nations Foundation and the United Methodist Church, and now with the additional efforts of the National Basketball Association and Sports Illustrated. The Nothing But Nets program is well on its way now toward eradicating malaria in some African countries. We know how small $25 loans to folks in Africa, India, Pakistan, and Cambodia allows for a small business to get started and allow for self sufficiency, sustainable living. We also know that the rate of return on those loans is high so the $25 can go toward another project. We know that giving a chicken, a donkey, a pig or several animals through our dollar donations to Heifer Project also provides for self sufficiency in countries around the world. These are all important projects and great ways in which to give and provide for the well being of others, and make great changes happen in the lives of others..

But this kind of giving where we provide a little is a not quite like the making that the widow of Zarephath offered. She gave/she made bread/cakes out of having nothing. She had to turn her thinking around in order to extend herself. We, in giving to Heifer, Nothing But Nets, long distance business loans, are giving out of our abundance. We're giving what we think we can afford to spare. I was reminded the other day by Carol Carver in her devotion at Mary Martha's of all of what we have. Even in this climate of economic unrest, compared to most in the world we live in great abundance.

Can we think of a time when we have made a difference, where we have created something when we didn't have a lot to spare? If I might, I think back to when I was in graduate school - I had the privilege first of all to be going to school and to have an educational scholarship, but still money was tight. I did work in a toxicology laboratory at the veterinary school in addition to going to school. But still money was tight. Back then, I found ways to stretch money. I had learned how to sew both through my mother and in junior high school so I did take up making my own clothes. I would save pieces of fabric that I'd come across (my neighbor was a seamstress). When I was on my own, before I had money for a sewing machine, I sewed a dress quite literally by hand. The amazing piece was that the dress didn't fall apart! The other more amazing fact was that when I was on my own and making my own clothes, I decided that I would sew for enjoyment not out of necessity or trying to outdo myself. I would sew out of enjoyment. Changing my attitude and taking the pressure off that I put on myself: those two things turned a needed project of making something from the bits of material I had into a time of pleasure and creation. Is this something like what the widow did? Ah-h-h, this making from a little bit was for my well-being.

Can we think of a time when we created, made a difference in the world, in our lives when extravagant giving was not a question of whether we could afford it but we did it purely because it was the right thing to do?

Several years ago, I had a chance to go on a Volunteers in Mission Trip to Cuba. It was in February when the hurricane season is still raging in the Caribbean. As we left New York City, as our team was headed to Cuba via Jamaica, a hurricane did hit. We were delayed in Jamaica several days waiting for the weather to calm. We were on the wrong side of Jamaica; people thought we were having a great time on the beaches but we were on the wrong side of the island. Instead of glorious beaches, we saw the devastation to Jamaica created by the hurricane and storms: homes, they were huts, completely washed away. After three attempts, we finally arrived in Cuba; we immediately were put into action distributing our medicines and supplies and additional goods from the Methodist Conference Center into boxes that were delivered to the isolated south east coast of the Cuban island where the hurricane had devastated villages. While in Cuba our team went to the church where we would be working neighboring Havana; it is in a town where pagan worship is high. We worshipped as only Methodists in Cuba can worship: for hours in crowded, jam packed sanctuaries, singing, hearing the word, and giving. The time passes very quickly. Now this is why I share this story. The people in Cuba are poor, dirt poor, and yet here they were during this offering not only offering their tithes which are publicly recorded but they were bringing bags forward - quite literally a pile of grocery bags filled with food - food that is rationed out for everyone - gifts kept multiplying. Out of nothing there was much that was gathered - it was an amazing sight. These donations then went out to the families whose homes were devastated by the hurricane. That's more like the kind of giving and making that the widow offered to Elijah. Out of the great scarcity in which they lived, they experienced abundance. How is it that we who relatively speaking have so much, need so much more?

I offer another incident during that Cuban trip which has stayed with me over the years. It is a meal that was offered our team of fifteen folks. We knew three young, musicians who were going to college studying music who were also Christian. They had acted as hosts and we shared in worship and music with them often. One of them invited us all to her family's home for dinner. We could do nothing but accept this gracious invitation of hospitality. We all: the three musician's extended families and our VIM team crowded into the small apartment in Havana. We were greeted with stories, singing, and a grand feast of special dishes that they had provided. We even experienced the inevitable power outage. What a wonderful evening of sharing. Behind that extraordinary gift of hospitality and giving is the realization that great sacrifices were made to offer that feast. Foods are rationed in Cuba. There is not enough for families to eat each week let alone to offer any food to strangers. But these folks would think nothing of their scarcity; they live in great abundance knowing Christ and having a living faith in God. And they would do nothing but extend that abundance of faith with their Christian friends from the US.

The amazing piece to this story we heard from 1st Kings is not that a promise by Elijah was kept so that there would be food enoughbut that this widow went ahead taking that step to risk everything, her life, her son's life. What appeared as scarcity, nothing to us or the one telling this story turned into great abundance because she relied not on the meal or the oil before her but on the promise of Elijah and God-inspired hope. Isn't that what we are called upon to do also? We are not to give by thinking of what we can spare. But we give out of a sense of the promise and hope given us in faith, through God and in Christ.

There's another story of a widow who gives a lot. In the gospel of Luke, Jesus points out, lifts up and praises her giving of a mite rather the grand giving of all those around her even though their gifts were financially greater. What Jesus reminds us of is how she considers giving - that's what is important. We hear that she gave a mite; she saw more than a mite's worth in her hand. She saw potential and possibility. For all that Jesus had offered her in her life; she could do nothing less than give all she had.