A Father Who Keeps Giving

"Come here," Geoffrey said gently. "Stand right here and close your eyes." Gertrude followed him to the spot and closed her eyes, waiting for her surprise.

Gertrude is a neighbor of ours that lives just down the street. We met her through kids' club because some of the children that live around her come each week. When she fell severely ill one night, she came tapping on our door to ask for help. We payed for the medicine tha she needed - just some simple antibiotics, antiparasitics, and antidiarrheals, but I think it might have saved her life. After that experience, Gertrude insisted that she wanted to come to church with us, so we took her with us the next week to a village church in Zinkone several kilometers away. She loved it so much that she told us she was going to go back each week, even if it meant pedaling her bike there and back - a long journey in both directions that would take several hours, especially for a woman as small and frail as she is. 

She is possibly one of the happiest, faithful sisters in Christ that I have met this year - always giving glory to God and wanting to participate in the church. She is also one of the sickest and most feeble women I have met this year, and that's because of the disease that plagues her body. Having suspected it, we sent her to Ouaga to a specialized clinic where she can get the treatment that she deserves. After passing a week there, our suspicions were confirmed as we discovered that Gertrude indeed suffers from the dreaded HIV. 

Thankfully, today this disease is not an automatic death sentence. With the treatment she received from Ouaga and will continue to receive, she will be able to live and work, take care of her family, keep smiling, and going to church. HIV used to be something I read about in text books, something that I saw sad pictures of on advertisements. Now it's something more real than that, yet when I look at Gertrude, I don't see HIV. That's not what defines her. I see my friend and her big, sweet smile and her heart that loves to praise Jesus. That's who she is and what will define her future. 

Now, she comes to our house frequently, not to ask for help but just to say hi. When we see her in the neighborhood, we wave and her smile brightens the day. She went with Geoffrey and Suzanne to another village church this week that is closer to our neighborhood, which they showed her so that she wouldn't have to pedal her bike so far to go to church each week. That's when they found out that her bike is in need of repairs and is hardly functional. 

So after dropping her off, they purchased a new bike for our sister, Gertrude. 

That's why she was standing in our yard with her eyes closed, waiting for her surprise. You should have seen her face when she opened her eyes and saw her new bike! That same beautiful smile that I have come to love came across her face, and she didn't know what to say except thank you, thank you, thank you. Together, we laid hands on her and her bicycle and prayed for many kilometers, many church attendances, and many years of life. 

It's fun to be on the giving side of such an exchange. Yet when I look at Gertrude, I see that truly I am on the receiving side. You see, I feel just like Gertrude. We all should because we all have this disease that is killing us - the spiritual sin disease. But our Father, by his love, has made a way for complete healing. Jesus took up our disease, carried our infirmity to the cross, and crucified it there with his own life. Now the Father has made a way to complete healing and restoration through him. But it doesn't end there. We have a Father who just keeps giving. He gives and he gives and he gives so much more than we ever deserve. Sometimes I feel like he never stops giving to me, and then I realize that's true. 

So that's why we give, give, give in return. And that's why it brings us so much joy. Gertrude won't ever be able to pay us back, and neither will we ever come close to paying back what we owe to our generous giving Father. So we offer him what we can - our lives, our hearts, our all. And then he just keeps giving.