The Rest of the Story

Here is 'the rest of the story' on the sacrificial gift of a chicken that was touched on in the previous post. On December 7th, Erfisa and her friend came to the main gate of MH campus with the beautiful intention of giving this gift to express feelings of gratitude for the way God has provided in their lives. 

Here is an inside look at 'the rest of the story' as was experienced that day.......

Today. A gift. SO you see the gift? A CHICKEN! She hands it to me. I hold it. It flaps its wings. Then I offer the ladies "a cup of cold water". (There is just something divine in this gesture)

Well I need two hands, two CLEAN hands to serve them some water. I go to the MH office and try to decide what to do with the chicken so I can get the water. I see a basket. I turn the basket upside down with the chicken under it. Then I put a box on top of the basket and go about my servant action to get them some water. I even had some packages of crackers to share.

That all happens and I go back to the office. The COCK is crowing!! Darryl is working in the office and comments on how loud the rooster is. I say, "I am sorry, he's not house broken." Darry doesn't really get my joke and gets up to look outside to see just WHERE IS THIS ROOSTER?!

So all this time passes. I need to get this chicken out of the office. I think I have it handled. I start to unveil the chicken....I see there is CHICKEN SHIT all over the floor! UGH!!

Now I really don't have time for this. Where am I going to put this chicken? I have work to do. 

I decide I am NOT getting chicken POOP on my clothes. I go to the guest house, change into my paint clothes, find an old t-shirt in order to pick up the chicken which also has stepped in and sat in the poop. It doesn't end here!

I take the chicken through the guest house. TiPay, the hardworking yard guy, says, "oh, Mr. Craig isn't going to like that chicken singing in his ear." I head out the back door and think I will just tie it to a chair in the yard until I have time to deal with it. TiPay comes around the corner. He points to another rooster in the yard. He says, "You better not leave him there. They will fight." Now Kalo, head security, enters the picture. He looks at me and makes a "slit-the-throat" motion and says you just have to kill it and eat it. I said maybe I can find another home for him. Kalo asks, "Was it a gift?" I say, "Yes." Kalo says, "You have to eat it." 

TiPay unties the chicken from the chair in the yard and takes it into the motorcycle storage shed complete with water, (which is what started all this to begin with) and some kernels of corn and ties the chicken inside. Now what? 

There is POOP that has to be cleaned up in the office. SO off I go! OH! how easy it was to receive yesterdays gift, simple plastic sack full of peanuts from the gift givers garden. All I have to do with those is roast them. How is it that I am so privileged to be the recipient of these sacrificial gifts?

Just reflect on the thoughts that were shared in the previous post from John Piper. This was a truest form of a sacrificial gift. For Erfisa, this was not meant to be a bribe. It was given to glorify God in this sense, as noted from John Piper, "The gifts are intensifiers of desire for Christ himself. When you give a gift to Christ it's a way of saying, 'by giving to you what you do not need and what I might enjoy, I am saying more earnestly and more authentically, You, Jesus, are my treasure, not these things.' "

And after all the commotion that day.... this is the way in which the gift was received! As Erfisa's true desire for Christ himself. SUCH a true blessing to be in the middle! So it could be phrased instead... "How am I so privileged to be the 'middle man' of such a sacrificial gift?"