DO LESS AND LOVE MORE - Zoe Empowers · Pray about what you will give up or do less of in order to...

700 Waterfield Ridge Place Garner, NC 27529 1.800.951.0234 www.zoehelps.org [email protected]

Helping Orphans and Vulnerable Children Be Secure Be Healthy Be Connected Be Prepared

DO LESS AND LOVE MORE Year B Lenten Reflections

You have heard the phrase “Less is more.” You know that children across the world are caring for children and other relatives because one or both parents have died of HIV/AIDS, or their family suffers from the effects of disease, war, famine, and extreme poverty. You’ve heard that these children face lives of loneliness, hardship, and hunger and that many end up begging for food, living on the streets, or worse. You’ve seen how ZOE partners with communities where orphaned and vulnerable children live so that they can bring children into supportive groups and connect them to local resources, training, and churches that empower them to break their cycle of poverty in just three years. What if you could help ZOE do more for these children by doing less for yourself during this season of Lent? ZOE invites you to do less of something you regularly spend money on and to give the money you save to ZOE’s empowerment ministry benefiting orphans and vulnerable children in need. It will help you:

Grow in the love made possible through Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. Make that love a present reality in the lives of children in ZOE’s ministry.

How it works:

Pray about what you will give up or do less of in order to save the money you will send to ZOE. Each week, take time to read your ZOE Lenten devotions and save your weekly offering. After Easter, mail your offering to 700 Waterfield Ridge Place, Garner, NC 27529 or go online to

www.zoehelps.org/donate. The love you share through your prayers and offering will help children:

Be connected to the people and resources they need to live full and happy lives. Be healthy and strong so that they can take care of themselves and their families. Be prepared for the wonderful future God wants for them. Be safe and secure in the community right where they live.

ZOE Lenten Devotional – Lectionary Year B

WEEK ONE: NOW

“Now is the time! Here comes God’s kingdom! Change your hearts and lives, and trust this good news!” – Mark 1:15 CEB

Centering Thought: I’m here to rewrite this tragedy One line at a time Hold on, I’m changing all the scenery It’s okay, we’ll be fine ‘Cause we know how this ends.

– Sara Groves, Rewrite This Tragedy

Read: Mark 1:9-15

Reflect: We begin our Lenten journey as Christians in all generations have begun theirs: with one eye on the end of the story. This view from “back to front” is one reason we can read today’s lesson and not think it a bit unsettling. It begins with Jesus’ baptism and God’s voice from heaven saying to him: “You are my son, and I love you.” Immediately followed by: “Now get into the wilderness for 40 days.” What? Wilderness? Now?

Mark’s readers would have understood Jesus’ time in the desert as a clear reference to their core narrative, the Exodus. As they read their own stories of suffering in the wilderness, they read them with one eye on the Promised Land, with the knowledge born of experience that God is faithful. In the same way for us, Jesus’ wilderness experience is understood with a forward view to the empty tomb. “Jesus is, as it were, leading the way through the water into the new world, the new time, the new possibility.”*

Adeline knows what it’s like to be in the wilderness. Only a couple of years ago, Adeline and her siblings found themselves living on the streets and begging to get meager amounts of food. On the worst weeks, they ate only one meal every other day. After their parents died, the children had no one to help them. Because of their extreme poverty, they were outcasts in the community.

When Adeline was invited to join a ZOE group, her dreams were simple: enough food, a goat, a cow. Today, Adeline’s story has been transformed as her dreams have been fulfilled many times over. With training from ZOE, she learned how to grow a kitchen garden that provides a variety of vegetables for daily meals for her family. After


participating in animal husbandry training, she received a goat. Now she has fertilizer for her garden and milk to enjoy. With her working group she learned about ways to generate income and start a business. She received a micro-grant and business training, and used both to sell dried beans and grains in her community.

Adeline’s family needed a home, away from the streets. With materials provided by ZOE and with help from her working group, she has built a house and walls around her latrine. She learned from ZOE how to keep her home healthy and free from pests, and with the social worker’s help, the family has enrolled in the national health insurance plan. Her siblings have returned to school. Most importantly, Adeline has a community with whom she can share her challenges and her accomplishments. Through the group and its weekly devotions, she has learned that God cares for her and wants her to prosper.

When Jesus emerged from the wilderness, he began his ministry with a simple message, translated in the Common English Bible like this: “Now is the time! Here comes God’s kingdom! Change your hearts and lives, and trust this good news!” Through ZOE, we support Adeline and other orphans in the wilderness, because we trust God’s good news. We know how the story ends.

Prayer: Loving God, we give thanks for the kingdom you have given and continue to give in Jesus. We celebrate the good news that has changed Adeline’s life and marvel at the way in which all of our lives are being written and shaped by your story. Help us turn away from anything that would pull us from your love, your purposes, and your possibilities. Amen.

Act: ZOE is issuing a challenge to its supporters – by doing less during Lent, you can help vulnerable children fulfill God’s dream for their lives.

Many people choose to give something up for Lent, often small luxuries like coffee, chocolate or fast food. ZOE is asking you to take it one easy step further – save the money you would have spent and use it to help orphans build a new life, free from poverty. You could even use it to buy Gifts that Help for your family and friends. It doesn’t cost much to help in profound ways. For the price of a week of Starbucks, you could help provide chickens for an orphan to start a flock. Visit www.zoehelps.org to take the challenge.

*Lent for Everyone, Year B by N. T. Wright, page 13.


WEEK TWO: LISTEN “This is my Son, whom I dearly love. Listen to him!” – Mark 9:7b CEB Centering Thought: Love's reality is not of passing bravery

It holds out hope beyond what's seen The hope of love Love not of you, love not of me Come hold us up, come set us free Not as we know it but as it can be

– Sara Groves, Love

Read: Mark 9:2-9

Reflect: Every Lent, we journey with Jesus in his suffering and reflect on our need for repentance. At some point along the way we walk up a high mountain and are buoyed by the vision of Jesus, arrayed in glory with the heroes of faith. It reminds us once again of who Jesus is and where his story is headed.

In addition to this message about Jesus, though, there’s a message about us.

Life presents us with countless opportunities to be dazed and overwhelmed. That was certainly true of the three disciples gathered on the mountain with Jesus. Mark’s Gospel tells us that the disciples were “terrified,” and that Peter blurted out: “Let’s make some shrines! One for each of you!” In short, not knowing what to do, he just started talking and making plans.

In contrast, while Peter is busy proposing his construction project, the voice of God interrupts and simply says: “Listen. Listen to Jesus.”

Isn’t this what most of us do, especially when faced with another person’s hardship and tragedy? We want so badly to help that before we have even heard the entire story, we’re on to “Well, we could [insert list of solutions here].”

The story of Angelique is one that would make anyone terrified. Orphaned at eight years old, Angelique struggled with her sister Clementine


just to survive in Rwanda. Because she was so young, no one would hire her to work. She and her sister were forced to beg for food to eat. During the dry season when there were no crops, people had little or nothing to give them. Often they went days without eating. Once, she relates, they had gone a week with no food. “We cried and cried,” she recalls.

One day, they found a field of cassava (a root vegetable). They dug one up and ate it raw. The farmer caught and threatened to beat them. Angelique begged and pleaded with him not to hurt them, and he finally relented. But he told them never to come around his farm again.

That experience has stayed with her for the past eight years as the lowest point of her life. Last year, at age 15, she joined the ZOE empowerment program, and since then she has become a successful businesswoman. With her business partner, she makes and sells sorghum drink in her town. They have rented a small house where they can dry the sorghum, roast it, grind it and boil it into the popular, nonalcoholic drink. They also use the house as a shop to sell their drinks. Now she has enough money to support herself and her sister. She rents a house, and they have enough nutritious food to eat every day. She is thankful to God and to ZOE for the transformation in her life.

The poverty where ZOE is engaged can be terrifying and overwhelming. Our instinct, like Peter, is often to just “do something.” ZOE’s journey with vulnerable children, however, always begins with listening. ZOE listens to their struggles, dreams and hopes because “doing” before listening can do more harm than good, creating dependency and lack of confidence. Children like Angelique tell their stories in a loving community of other orphans and begin their journey toward a new life together from there.

So it is that we journey together with Jesus this Lenten season, listening to him as he shares in word and deed what it means to follow him. May we glimpse what was shared on the mountain and the future that can be. And as the glory of Jesus fills our lives, let us ask ourselves where we are. Headed back down the mountain toward our neighbors? Or still up on the mountain that Jesus has already left?

Prayer: Loving God, we give thanks that no matter where we find ourselves, the power of the resurrection goes before and surrounds us in all that we do. May Angelique’s story transform us to be fully present to your suffering and your glory. Help us to trust. Help us to listen. Amen.

Act: Learn more about ZOE’s empowerment by viewing ZOE’s video Helping Children Help Themselves at www.zoehelps.org/resources/videos-and-media.


WEEK THREE: FOOLISH “[T]he foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.” – I Corinthians 1:25 CEB Centering Thought: And I feel you here And you’re picking up the pieces Forever faithful It seemed out of my hands, a bad situation But you are able And in your hands, the pain and hurt Seem less like scars And more like character.

– Sara Groves, Less Like Scars

Read: I Corinthians 1:18-25

Reflect: Corinth was a pretty cosmopolitan spot in Paul’s time. It was a major commercial center with a population in the hundreds of thousands, located not far from Athens. The citizens of Corinth probably had a fairly high opinion of themselves and their Hellenistic view of things. It appears from Paul’s first letter to the church, that some of the local intellectuals were criticizing the gospel that had been preached by Paul there. They were even calling it “foolishness.” It is worth noting that the Greek word used by Paul here is “moria,” where we get our English word “moron.” That is, there were folks in Corinth saying: “Only morons could believe that stuff.”

When you first heard about ZOE’s empowerment program, (and be honest), did it not cross your mind that it might be “foolishness”? Putting orphans together in groups with one social worker per one thousand children? No food relief? No orphanages? Teenage entrepreneurs? Everything about the ZOE empowerment model goes against our Western grain of helicoptering in to fix problems for people. To borrow the old saying, we want to give the hungry person a fish instead of teaching him to fish. But ZOE takes it a step further. It creates groups in which the children teach one another to fish, and then they start a fish farm, and then they employ other children. The thing about the foolishness of ZOE is that it not only works, it multiplies.

George thought ZOE was foolishness at first. By the time he was seven years old, George had already struggled with adult problems. His father died when he was four, and his mother was very sick. He and his sister still lived with their mother, but they felt the ostracism and isolation of poverty and discrimination. Even though they have some land around their home, they didn’t have the knowledge or resources to grow crops. Every day was a challenge just to find enough to eat.


When ZOE came to George’s village, he came to the first meeting with an empty sack, believing ZOE was another Western food program that would provide him with a bag of grain or potatoes. Instead, he learned that ZOE was different. George learned that, instead of giving away food, ZOE would provide the seeds, tools and training he and other children needed to grow their own food. At this meeting, George and his sister also found a group of children who were in similar circumstances, struggling to feed themselves and their siblings and in desperate poverty. George’s first thought was that only morons would believe that children like him could pull themselves out of poverty.

Still, in desperation, George and his sister decided to join the ZOE empowerment group, and their lives began to change. Now George has a smile as he tends his properly-planted crops. Thanks to donations from people on the other side of the world, George and his sister can stay in school, share their struggles and successes with a group of friends, and eat nourishing food from their own garden. In their group devotions each week, they give thanks to God for their supporters so far away who help them help themselves.

Paul told the Corinthians that the message of the cross might seem like foolishness, but it is “the power of God to those of us who are being saved.” George and thousands of children like him, thanks to the faithful fools who are committed to ZOE’s mission, know the power of God for themselves.

Prayer: Gracious God, we give you thanks for the beauty of the cross and for doing for us what we could never do for ourselves. We pray for children, like George, in need of your saving power in every part of their lives. Strengthen our commitment to the work of ZOE so that children who are vulnerable and weak may be made strong by your love. Amen.

Act: Learn more about how you might get more involved in ZOE’s work. Visit www.zoehelps.org/get-involved.


WEEK FOUR: TEMPLE

Jesus answered, “Destroy this temple and in three days I’ll raise it up.” – John 2:19 CEB Centering Thought:

I see the long quiet walk along the Underground Railroad, I see the slave awakening to the value of her soul, I see the young missionary and the angry spear I see his family returning with no trace of fear, I see the long hard shadows of Calcutta nights I see the sisters standing by the dying man’s side, I see the young girl huddled on the brothel floor I see the man with a passion come and kicking down that door, I see the man of sorrow and his long troubled road, I see the world on his shoulders and my easy load And when the saints go marching in, I wanna be one of them And when the saints go marching in, I wanna be one of them

– Sara Groves, When the Saints

Read: John 2:13-22

Reflect: Today’s passage takes place during Passover in the temple in Jerusalem. In reading, you might think that Jesus was upset because the moneychangers and the animal sellers in the temple were doing something wrong, like cheating or stealing. But these people had every right to be in the temple. They were providing a valuable service to the Jewish pilgrims who were traveling from all over to Jerusalem for the festival. Animal sacrifice was part of the temple ritual, and unless you wanted to bring animals all the way from [insert hometown here], you needed to buy them. So Jesus wasn’t upset because the sellers and moneychangers were working where they should not be. He turned over the tables and ran people out because the entire sacrificial system missed the point. In that moment Jesus stopped the function of the Temple as people had come to see it.

When the disciples asked Jesus what kind of sign he was trying to send, Jesus responded, “Destroy this temple and in three days I’ll raise it up.” By that he did not mean the temple they were standing in where, many believed, to be the place heaven and earth are met together. Jesus is referring to himself, the true place where heaven and earth meet.

We see similar frustration in Jesus’ blistering critique of the superficial religiosity of the Pharisees, as well as his debates with legal experts over gathering grain and healing on the Sabbath. Jesus was trying to tell us that true religion cannot be reduced to ceremony and ritual; it must be real. It is in “caring for widows and orphans in their affliction” (James 1:27) and in “doing justice, loving mercy, and walking humbly with our God.” (Micah 6:8) It is joining the struggle of our most vulnerable brothers and sisters around the world, brothers and sisters like Leonard.


At the age of 12, Leonard lost his father in a car accident. His mother died two years later. At the young age of 14, Leonard became both mother and father to 11-year-old Peninah and Morris, 8. Each day Leonard looked for work in his neighborhood to feed his family. Some days he would labor in farms, others he would tend cattle. For long days of back-breaking work, he would be paid a meager, exploitative wage. Sometimes he would be given just a small basket of potatoes. As a young orphan, Leonard was forced to accept what was given. It was not long before Leonard, Morris and Peninah were trapped in poverty, struggling each day to survive. Besides the physical pain of hunger and frequent illness, they also suffered emotionally, either shunned or abused by members of their village – both with devastating effects.

One day, a local leader invited Leonard to join ZOE. He and other orphans in his village came together and formed the Blessings Amwamba Working Group. Each month, this group meets with ZOE social workers and learns many skills, such as farming, disease prevention, animal husbandry, business fundamentals and money management. The eldest children in the group gather each week to celebrate their successes, share their challenges, and create and manage a revolving fund.

With help from ZOE, Leonard has been able to grow food on his parents’ land, and to keep his family safe from insect-borne diseases. When Leonard decided to become a tailor, ZOE provided him with the necessary fees to train as an apprentice. After his training was over, he received a start-up kit that included a sewing machine, cloth, scissors and other essentials. As the final step toward starting his own business, ZOE gave Leonard a micro-grant to cover his first month’s shop rent. After one month, Leonard’s business was going well enough that he was able to cover his own operating costs. Peninah and Morris are in school, and Leonard has a bright future.

Here in the fourth week of our Lenten journey as we draw close to the cross and the one who will be raised up three days later, let us ask ourselves what it means that Jesus did come “to do what God promised: to judge and to save, to sort things out once and for all, to bring heaven and earth together at last?”* Moreover, what does it mean that we, Jesus’ followers, are an extension of this new true temple?

Prayer: Loving God, we thank you that in Jesus the kingdom of heaven has been brought near right here and now. Help us always and in all things to do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with you. Amen.

Act: Watch Sara Groves’ video “When the Saints” at www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgrt9OZSaXY. How do you see yourself as extension of the true temple?



WEEK FIVE: CORNERSTONE

“The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.” – Psalm 118:22 NIV Centering Thought: Now with patience in our suffering Perseverance in our prayers With good reason this hope is in our hearts

– Sara Groves, “Joy is in Our Hearts”

Read: Psalm 118

Reflect: Psalm 118 is a beautiful passage that most scholars believe is an ancient Jewish temple liturgy recalling the deliverance of the Hebrew people from slavery through the wilderness to the Promised Land, and later, the deliverance from exile in Babylon. Indeed, verse 27 expressly invites worshipers to approach “the horns of the altar” to celebrate. Beginning with humiliation and distress (“when hard-pressed, I cried to the Lord”-v. 5), the passage moves through triumph to gratitude (“Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good”-v. 29). The people, who were oppressed and without value by worldly standards, have overcome by God’s grace.

The lectionary, which we have been following in our devotionals, invites us to read Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29. Doing so, writes N. T. Wright, “…is like trying to get to the party without preparation. The party is great, but the preparation is what counts.”*

In its entirety, Psalm 118 suggests to us the way in which Jesus himself lived through humiliation and distress and cried out to God. How he himself took refuge in and trusted in God when those around him despised and rejected him. How he himself was delivered to death and did not die, so that all of us may declare:

“Give thanks to the Lord because he is good, because his faithful love lasts forever.” Psalm 118:29

To take away the pain and the path to the empty tomb is to take away the deep understanding of who God is and how the path, in large part, helps define and determine the final destination.

Before ZOE, Jean de Dieu was a homeless boy in Rwanda with two young siblings to care for. He was an outcast in his community. ZOE helped change his life by bringing together the orphans in his area to form a mutually supportive working group. Over the first few months, ZOE provided training in farming, animal husbandry, business and financial management, disease prevention and child rights. During these learning sessions, Jean de Dieu found new opportunities for his entrepreneurial spirit. First, he grew a


kitchen garden with seeds and a hoe provided by ZOE. He also got a cow that provided milk for the family and manure for the garden. Jean then received a micro-grant from ZOE and invested in selling grilled peanuts. After a few months, he used part of his income to buy a farm of newly planted rice. He later sold the rice harvest for a higher price, making a greater profit. Jean then used that income to start an additional banana farm. Now his family eats three nutritious meals a day and his siblings, no longer malnourished, are back in school.

From a life of begging and stealing to get food for his family, Jean de Dieu has now become a successful farmer known locally as “The Boss.” Jean not only supports himself and his family, but he also employs several people from his community.

From beggar to boss, the stone who was rejected has been built into the larger project that God is building and the kingdom’s Cornerstone not only understands his pain, he knows what it means to sing with him:

“You are my God, I will give thanks to you! You are my God, I will lift you up high!” Psalm 118: 128

Give thanks to the Lord, indeed.

Prayer: Loving God, we thank you for the way in which you have delivered Jean de Dieu from a life of suffering to a life of fullness and joy. In our rush to celebrate your goodness, make us truly mindful of his difficult journey and the journey you chose to show us who you truly are and where your story is headed. Amen.

Act: Go to www.zoehelps.org and read the stories and watch the videos of other children who have moved from suffering to lives of fullness and joy.



WEEK SIX: KING

“Do not be afraid, Daughter Zion; see, your king is coming, seated on an ass’s colt.” – John 12:15 RSV Centering Thought: Remember surrender Remember the rest Remember the weight lifting off of your chest And realizing it’s not up to you and it never was. Remember surrender Remember relief Remember how tears rolled down both of your cheeks As the warmth of a heavenly father came closing in.

– Sara Groves, Remember Surrender

Read: John 12:12-16

Reflect: Many of us still might get a little chuckle from the old translations’ use of the word “ass” for the donkey that Jesus rode into Jerusalem, but it makes for some useful double entendre. The best description of the church has to be Shane Claiborne’s: we’re just the asses who carry Jesus around. And Jesus’ choice of a donkey as his mode of transport into Jerusalem sent a clear message, although it might not be the one you think.

Riding a donkey communicated in no uncertain terms to the people in Jerusalem that Jesus was a king. Far from being a sign of humility, riding a donkey was a normal act for a king who was traveling in peace. (Horses were used only for riding into war.) Solomon is reported as riding a donkey (I Kings 1:33), and the very passage from Zechariah quoted in John’s gospel is the foretelling of a Messiah riding a donkey triumphantly into Jerusalem (Zech. 9:9-10).

The surprising thing is not that Jesus rode a donkey, but that the people would greet Jesus as a king at all. Jesus didn’t seem very kingly, and although he had done some miracles, including raising Lazarus from the dead, he had never advised revolt against Rome, for example. Still, the people hailed Jesus as “king of Israel” and shouted “Hosanna!” in welcome. The writer of John reports that the situation was so bewildering that the disciples couldn’t figure out what was going on, and they didn’t really understand the whole “royal entrance” thing until much later, after the resurrection. The people of Jerusalem, however, didn’t get the king they expected. This king came not to get rid of the Romans, but to reconcile all people for all time. He came not to preach defeat of enemies, but love of them. He came not to restore the “old-time religion,” but to establish the kingdom of God. The people of Jerusalem greeted King Jesus as the earthly Messiah they had hoped for. Only later did they realize, through their experience of the risen Christ, that he was the Savior of the world for all time.


Fifteen-year-old Giovani desperately wanted a better life, but he had no way of achieving it. Then he was invited to join a ZOE group of children in his Guatemalan village. “When I said yes to ZOE, it sounded like the opportunity that I was waiting for, for a long time,” said Giovani. Giovani’s plan before ZOE was to risk his life in a dangerous dash to the Texas border, with the hope of achieving a better life.

Then $25 worth of chickens changed Giovani’s life. ZOE taught Giovani how to care for farm animals, and how to run a business and manage money. When he was ready, ZOE provided Giovani with five chickens to start a flock that will provide food and income. Before ZOE, Giovani had few options: join a gang, remain in extreme poverty, or make a life-threatening journey to another country. Now, Giovani is surrounded by a community of friends, has experienced the love of God, and is well on his way to self-reliance right where he lives.

ZOE supporters know what it’s like to think you are seeing one thing, when something much greater is present. We often start with a small gift in response to an appeal at church or from a friend. As we learn more about ZOE, maybe we donate a pig or even become a monthly supporter. Over time, through reports from ZOE or perhaps even through our own trips to visit working groups, we see the fruits of empowerment: strong young people, leaders in their communities, spreaders of the love of Christ, blessed children of God blessing people around them. It looked like a small gift, but was in the end so much more. In the best sense, we can say with gratitude we are indeed among those who carry Jesus into the world.

We celebrate this Holy Week with our brothers and sisters in Africa, India, and Guatemala. We are grateful for having made this Lenten journey with them. With them, we look toward Easter Sunday.

Prayer: Loving God, as we follow Jesus into Holy Week, we give thanks for the kingdom he is ushering in. Help us to embrace love and reconciliation as our new normal and live into it in word and deed. Amen.

Act: Share the story of ZOE’s work with one new person through conversation, email, or social media. Link them to ZOE’s work at www.zoehelps.org.


EASTER SUNDAY: GO “Go, tell his disciples, especially Peter, that he is going ahead of you into Galilee. You will see him there, just as he told you.” – Mark 16:7

Centering Thought: When fear engulfs your mind, says you protect your own You still extend your hand, you open up your home When sorrow fills your life, when in your grief and pain You choose again to rise, you choose to bless the name That's a little stone that's a little mortar, That's a little seed that's a little water In the hearts of the sons and the daughters, the kingdom's coming.

– Sara Groves Kingdom Comes

Read: Mark 16:1-8

Reflect: Jesus’ resurrection was so terrifying to the women who discovered his empty tomb that, initially, they told no one. Easter is surprising and it should be. Journeying toward it for six weeks now, it is easy to see this as our destination. In Week 1 of these devotions, we noted that we know how the story ends. Well, here we are.

Yet, Easter cannot be contained by the idea of destination. It perpetually sends us backward into our lives to live a new and different story. Each and every day it is “a new way of living, (because) a new way of being human has been launched upon the world, a way that people thought impossible…but a way that has caught up millions and transformed their lives beyond recognition.”*

Recently, a ZOE Hope Companion group from the United States traveled to Kenya to meet their working group which had gotten started only three months prior to their visit. During their trip they walked up a mountain to the home of 18-year-old Brian, the leader of one of the families in their group.

Brian cares for his 14-year old brother Pius, his sister Risper, 8, and an adopted orphan named Dennis. Brian invited Dennis to stay with them because Dennis’ father is gone and his mother is an abusive alcoholic and does not care for him. Brian, Pius and Dennis lived on small plots of land his parents left him, in very small house. Brian’s mother and father passed away several years ago. They lived with their grandmother until she passed away recently. He often wondered if he was cursed and if God loved him. Brian worked to provide for his family feeding cows for neighbors, and was paid in food. The person who employed Brian took Risper to live with his family because culturally, girls cannot stay in the same room


as boys past a certain age. Risper served as their maid and house help in exchange for room and board. Often when parents die, the family disintegrates. Brian worked hard to make sure that did not happen. Then, Brian became part of a ZOE Working Group. His group provided his family with a rabbit, which they now care for. The group members helped Brian cultivate his family’s land. His dream was to become a great farmer. Brian’s working group helped build a latrine on his land. Other orphans now come by to share and visit with him. Life was improving. Brian wanted to have another room on his house so his sister can live with him. Even though his sister worked as house help for his employer, Brian still had to provide clothes for her and pay for her to go to school. He had nothing left from what he was earning. Brian had no kitchen or utensils, so they cannot cook food. The bed in their small house was what the three boys slept on. One year later, the Hope Companions returned to visit Brian. Where a year earlier a group of orphans were pulling weeds and running pipes on empty ground stood a thriving cornfield. And from the thick stalks emerged Brian, smiling ear to ear (pun intended . . .). He had not only become a great farmer, but his friends had appointed him chaplain of his group. Brian led everyone in a prayer of thanksgiving and welcome. It would have surprised no one if an angel had emerged from the corn to say: “Do not be amazed.” They were all—the children, the visitors, the adult mentor, the ZOE staff, and all of the people back home who make ZOE possible through their faithful support—standing in the empty tomb. Amen.

Pray: Dear God, we give thanks for the power of resurrection right here, right now, and eternally. We give thanks for the places where ZOE is at work and the beautiful truth that you always go before to greet those who visit through the lives and stories of the children who are being empowered to help themselves and their families. Together with them strengthen us to go forward in this good work with you. Amen.

Act: Go into all the world living into your new story.



700 Waterfield Ridge Place Garner, NC 27529

1.800.951.0234 [email protected]

www.zoehelps.org

DO LESS AND LOVE MORE - Zoe Empowers · Pray about what you will give up or do less of in order to...

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