The S Word # 19

THE THEOLOGY OF MONEY # 19

STORIES FROM STEWARDSHIP LIFE
By Douglas Hambidge #19

Of course there are still budgets to be met. These are important and have to be taken seriously by all good stewards. Of course there are projects that look to us for support, and there are crises and disasters from which we cannot turn away. But these are not the foundation upon which stewardship is built.

Our response to these things arises out of a conviction that the way I spend my life in all it aspects is a declaration of a faith response to the God who loves me and gave without limit. We are called not so much to engage in stewardship programmes as to be stewards. This means that life is lived as an offering of faith and thanksgiving, and in full awareness of the giving of God, which calls from us a life of giving in response.

I can illustrate this best with living examples. I have met this kind of steward.

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In Tanzania there is the tiny and very remote village of Kwinwitwe. Its inhabitants are all lepers. Earlier it was no more than a place where outcast lepers chose to live, isolated from their families and disconnected from one another because of their horrible disfiguring disease. An Anglican priest named Robin, at his retirement, told his bishop that he planned to live out his life in the Kwinwitwe area. He said he wanted to give something back for all God’s blessings throughout his ministry.

For the next thirty years –he died at age ninety-five—Robin brought together a community. He arranged for medications, and he encouraged the people to meet and talk together. Gradually these dislocated individuals became a cohesive community, a worshipping community and a caring community. Kwinwitwe became a community of hope and healing.

Here was a priest who knew himself to be a steward, and who demonstrated this in a life of faith and thanksgiving. His stewardship was expressed in giving himself to these forgotten children of God.

Next week: Stories from Stewardship Life # 20