More Valuable Than Birds

During my first year of college, I was poor. I moved away from home to attend school. I lived in a house with four other girls; three of the girls I had gone to high school with.

I had a gotten a job transfer from the A& P grocery store (as a cashier) in my hometown to the city where I would be going to school. Unfortunately with the transfer, I was put on the bottom of the sonority list and therefore, I got the least amount of shifts to work. Most weeks, I worked four hours a week (the odd week, I didn’t even work at all). Not exactly easy for anyone to live off of.

My parents had agreed/offered to pay for my rent ($300 per month) but all other expenses were on me – with four hours a week of pay. It was TOUGH.

There were many weeks where I couldn’t afford lunch and so I would have a piece of toast for breakfast, head to school, be in class all day with nothing in my stomach, and then go home and find what I could scrounge up.  In that first year, I mostly lived off pasta noodles and no name Italian dressing.  That would be my dinner. Every. Single. Night.

I had some friends in school that would randomly bring me or buy me a bagel for lunch and sometimes they would invite me over for dinner just so that I could have one decent meal to eat.

There were times when I didn’t know how I would pay for groceries when I had nothing left or how I was going to pay for my week of toilet paper in the house. 

I would forget that I am more valuable than birds.

During my first four years on the mission field, I lived off of $250 per month.  It was okay to live off of that for the first year because I lived at a children’s home and didn’t have very many expenses.  I wasn’t charged room/board; all I had to pay for was my personal expenses (internet, food outside of what they had to offer and toiletries).  But when I moved to another ministry and lived on the compound, I needed to pay rent, food, transportation, etc.).  It was a stretch when after paying rent, what was left over for the rest of the month of expenses.

I started to remember that I am more valuable than birds.

During Sean’s and my first year of marriage, we lived on a compound with other people.  We had only a bedroom to ourselves and felt constantly watched by everyone.  The compound had a revolving door of teams, interns and regulars.  If Sean and I needed to have a conversation, we had to go to our bedroom to talk. We would constantly get bugged or harassed for giving each other a kiss hello or goodbye that was outside of our bedroom.  

In our first year of marriage, we spent four weeks of that, alone. Not one single person on the compound. Four weeks.

We knew that the best thing for our marriage (and sanity!) would be to move out and find a place of our own. Our financial support was good for living on a shared compound with people but we knew that it was going to be stretched by having a place of our own.  But we were doing what we knew was best for us.

And God provided us with the perfect house...just for us.

We moved in to our home in May of 2010. We hired a day time watchman and a night time watchman.  We hired a lady to come and do our laundry (it’s all done by hand – we don’t have a washer/dryer). We got a guard dog.   All necessities when living here.

The first year of living in that house, by the beginning of the third week each month, we didn’t know how we were going to get groceries or have transportation money to get to/from places we needed to go.  Our money had been spent on necessities.  The expenses increased but the financial support remained the same. 

We had even contemplated not having internet anymore but we realized it was a necessity to us. It was our connection to family and friends back in North America.

We had been invited to a fellow missionary’s home for dinner one night and when we were leaving, the wife handed me a bag. I looked inside and it was groceries (meat, canned goods, fruit, vegetables, etc.).  She just looked at me and said, “God just laid it on my heart that I needed to give you guys these things.”  How did she know? God told her.

We ARE more valuable than birds.

Sean and I are approaching our fourth wedding anniversary in two weeks (from tomorrow).  We are embarking on a new adventure of adoption.  We are also embarking on a new year of our financial support being lowered.

The economy isn’t the greatest right now and we know that.  We know that every one of our supporters is working hard for their families back in Canada and the US and also feeling the pinch in their own personal life too.  And please know that we are forever grateful for each and every one of you who continue to support us (financially, prayerfully) no matter what.

January of this year was our first month with our financial support being lowered.  It was lowered by the amount equivalent to paying for the rent on our home and almost the amount of our night time watchman.

Yes, I admit, I lost a few nights of sleep worrying and then in the middle of the night, God said, “My daughter, read Matthew 6.” 

So I did. And I came to Matthew 6:25-27.

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear.  Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?” - Jesus

Sean and I BELIEVE and KNOW we are MORE VALUABLE than birds.

Why?  Because our Daddy continues to provide. We have seen it first-hand. We have experienced it over and over again.

I experienced it in college when God would have my friends bring me food for lunch or there would randomly be $100 in my account on a month when I was hungry.

I experienced it in my first few years on the mission field (pre-marriage) when I didn’t know how I was going pay for groceries every week when living on the compound and then I would check my bank account and there would be a random $100 or $200 in my account.

Sean and I experienced it in our first year of marriage when a missionary friend gave us a bag of groceries from her kitchen or when we would get an email that someone had donated an extra $100 that month to us.

Sean and I experienced it THIS WEEK when we were wondering how/where we were going to work things out, having received less support (the new changes for the 2013 year) and we got an email that there was a transfer in our account of what was needed plus a bit extra.

We have never gone without the necessities.  Luxuries - yes, we have gone without. But necessities – never.

And so we press on with life here (and the adoption!) because we know all this is where God wants and needs us to be right now and we do it without (as much) worry (I’m still a slow-learning human being, remember!). 

Jesus said we are more valuable than birds and He has shown it over and over again. So my mustard seed of faith will just keep on believin’!

I hope you will start believing too.

Much Love,

Meredith