We were 3000 miles from family, attending school in Oregon. Married, with a young child, neither of us were able to work in the States but supported ourselves financially through student loans and whatever monies we had been able to put away for this endeavor. By mid-year the monies we had brought were used up and the mid-year loan monies had not yet arrived. We had a child to care for and no money to buy even the staples of life.

Some people are always quick to broadcast their situation to anyone who will listen and possibly help. My approach was to trust that the God who had brought us this far would not leave us stranded. Though inwardly stressed and yes crying out to God for some type of answer we still pressed on with what little we had left.

It was a Saturday night and around 8pm we had a knock at our door. There stood a lady from the church we attended with something in her hands. Having just come from a banquet she brought a gift, a milk carton full of lasagna and a pumpkin pie. It is hard to describe how good lasagna and pie tastes when you are down to almost nothing. That gift carried us into the next week when the loan monies arrived.

Ironically the following summer there were two families back home who told us that they felt they were to send us some monies but never followed through on the impulse. When asked the time frame it was when we were in deepest need.

Even when people may have let us down God did not forsake us and met our need by sending someone else who listened and responded.

James reminds us that faith without works means nothing. If there are not practical applications to the faith we profess to have it can easily devolve into self-delusion with all the appearances of piety but lacking substance. “If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food and one of you says to them, ‘Depart in peace, be warmed and filled; but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit?. Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works is dead”. (James 2:14-16)

On that night her gift supplied our needs and in doing so caused us to break out in thanksgiving to God for His faithfulness and her response to His direction. May it also be said of us!