What's in your cup?

"No man ever made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could only do a little."
-Edmund Burke

Yesterday I was having a conversation with Frank Martin, a pastor to missionaries, and he was telling me about 1 young woman in Kenya, Africa who is teaching five women in the Bible. He explained to me that each of those five women are also teaching other women, five to ten each, and those women are also teaching other women! In total, 1000 women are being taught... because ONE woman is teaching FIVE women. I was amazed.

Frank also shared about a poor rural village in Kenya, and about a congregation there that was being challenged by its pastor to give to support the local orphans. The church's response was this: "If we give, then we will have nothing left." For the church members are also very deprived, however, there were three cows that belonged to the members of the congregation.

The cows were milked twice daily - morning and night. In the morning, the people were forced to take all the milk to the market because there was no refrigeration system to keep the milk cool. These earnings were only sufficient to feed the family and the cows; if the profits were any smaller, either the cows or the owners would starve. The evening milk, however, was able to be kept by the family, as evenings are cooler, and was used to make porridge in the morning.

The pastor's challenge: Can't you spare just 1 cup of milk each evening?

Of course, the people agreed that they could give just 1 cup of milk, but their response was this: "What difference can only 1 cup make?"

The calculations were made and the church was able to provide 38 gallons of milk each week, only 1 cup at a time. Some of the milk is being given to the local orphans, and the rest is being sold at the market to buy grains for the same children.

What's in your cup?