Spirit of Truth is about supporting one another as we endeavor to live justly and to stand with those who have been treated unjustly. Recently I have heard about others, far from Minnesota, who support each other in this too. Since these stories inspired me, I offer them to you now, knowing that the Spirit will find a way to have them touch you too.
Recently, people fleeing the violence in Ivory Coast have found shelter in villages in Liberia. A woman named Marie, along with sixteen members of her extended family stumbled onto a village of about thirty mud brick huts. There a farmer named Saturday Wayee took them in.
They slept on the dirt floor of his hut and shared the food and water he gave them.
More arrived, about sixteen different groups in all. By the end of the month in which Marie first arrived, Saturday was sheltering 35 people in his small home.
He says it is hard to find food for everyone, but he continues his hospitality. During his country’s civil war, many people in his area fled to Ivory Coast. He says there is a feeling that when violence comes, you help those in need and they’ll do the same for you.
Saturday explained, “We are suffering with them because we are all human beings.” The second story of people supporting one another comes from a different area of Africa. A young Kenyan medical student was studying in the United States. Returning home, he told his village community a story that had “burned a hole in his heart.” He described the September 11th attacks. When he finished speaking, there was silence as they pondered the suffering that happened in ways almost unimaginable to the villagers. Then a plan emerged.
They invited the American ambassador to come. At his arrival, he was greeted by hundreds of people, dressed in scarlet tunics and beaded collars. They had a gift, they said, for the people of the United States, to help them heal from the tragedy. The gift was fourteen cows.
All of these people are doing the work of God.
In a book by Amy Hollingsworth, I learned my hero Mister Rogers believed the work of God is “seeing the eternal in your neighbor, that divine presence that allows us to show mercy to our neighbor—and to receive it.”
