Can We? Will We?

November 7, 2008

By Sylvia Turner

As I looked around the church Sunday, I took in the multicolored cloths hung up to create a three-wall enclosure, the little children playing on a cement step, the baby chicks slipping in and out, and later a couple of hens. I had to laugh.

The congregation of about 70 people had saved up enough money to pay for gasoline to run a generator at $5.40 a gallon. These were families living far below the U.S. poverty level yet singing their praises to God. A bent-over woman in her 80s, barely able to walk up to put her money in the offering, still worshipfully swayed with micromovements to the music.

Amidst such poverty, and such wealth, I truly felt the presence of the Lord.

In these extremely difficult economic times in the U.S., can we, will we, lift our hearts and minds in praise to the Lord?

“Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior. The Sovereign Lord is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, he enables me to go on the heights” (Habakkuk 3:17-19, NIV).

— Wayne and Sylvia Turner serve as Assemblies of God missionaries in Kinshasa, Congo.