[Darlene]

I’ll never forget on Sunday 1946. I was 14, my little sister Ocy, 12, and my older sister Sue, 16. We lived at home with our mother, and the four of us knew what it was to do without many things. Mt dad had died five years before, leaving Mom with seven school kids to raise and no money. By 1946, my older sisters were married, and my brother had left home.

A month before, the preacher announced that a special offering would be taken to help a poor family. He asked everyone to save and give sacrificially. When we got home, we talked about what we could do. We decided to buy 50 pounds of potatoes and live on them for a month. This would allow us to save $20 of our grocery money for the offering. Then we thought that if we kept our electric lights turn down as low as possible and didn’t listen to the radio, we’d save money on that month’s electric bill. Sue got as many house and yard cleaning jobs as possible, and both of us babysat for everyone we could. For 15 cents we could buy enough cotton loops to make three potholders to sell for $1.00. We made $10 on potholders.

That month was one of the best of our lives. Every day we counted the money ro see how much we had saved. At night we’d sit in the dark and talk about the poor family was going to enjoy having the money the church would give them. We had about 80 people in church, so we figured that whatever money we had to give, the offering would surely be 20 times that much. After all, every Sunday the preacher had reminded everyone to save for the sacrificial offering.

The day before the “big day,” Ocy and I walked to the grocery store and got the manager to give us three crisp $20 bills and one $10 bill for all our change. We ran all the way home to show Mom and Sue. We had never had so much money. That night we were so excited we could hardly sleep. We could hardly wait to get to church.

When the offering was taken, we were sitting on the second row from the front. Mom put in the $10 bill, and each of the girls put in a $20. We walked home after services, we sang all the way. At lunch Mom had a surprise for us. She had bought a dozen eggs, and we had boiled eggs with our fried potatoes!

Late that afternoon the minister drove up in his car. Mom went to the door, talked with him for a moment, and then came back with an envelope and out fell a bunch of money. There were three crisp $20 bills, one $10 and seventeen $1. Mom put the money back into the envelope. We didn’t talk, just sat and stared at the floor. We had gone from feeling like millionaires to feeling like poor white trash.

On Saturday, Mom asked us what we wanted to do with the money. What did poor people do with money? We didn’t know. We’d never known we were poor. We didn’t want to go back Sunday, but Mom said we had to. Although is was sunny, we didn’t talk. Mom started to sing, but no one joined in and she only one verse.

We had a missionary who talked about how churches in Africa made buildings out of sun-dried bricks, but they needed money to buy roofs. He said $100 would put a roof on the church building. The minister said, “Can’t we all sacrifice to help these poor people?” We looked at each other and smiled for the first time in a week. Mom reached into her purse and pulled out the envelope. She passed it to Sue gave it to me, and I handed it to Ocy. Ocy put it in to the offering. When the offering was counted, the minister was excited. He hadn’t expected such a large offering from a small church. He said, “You must have some rich people in this church.”

Suddenly it struck us! We had given $87 of the “little over $100.” We were the rich family in the church. From that day on I’ve never been poor again. I know how rich I am in Jesus.


Eddy Ogan

[Burntmarshmallow]

Love this story and Love you for sharing it! Me too from big "poor" family. Tho all my bros and sisters went to church... by the time I was born Mom and Dad never raised me ummm ... never been to church.... Glad yours did cus you seem like a nice person and generous , thanks for sharing!!!!!!
Many Blessings.