Money: It’s Bananas
by Debbie Poer
Many years ago, while serving at Haus Edelweiss, I was in a meeting one day with five or six Christian leaders from a country where Christianity is looked down upon and Christians are often persecuted for their faith. Theirs is a country with limited personal financial resources as well. In the course of the conversation one of the men said, “You don’t understand, ours is a land of miracles. It is a miracle I can even put food on the table for my family.” (According to The World Factbook 2023 I spend 6.2% of my income on food while they spend 32.3% of theirs.) What we had been talking about was the fact there were bananas on our breakfast table every single morning of the two weeks we were together, something he could not afford for his family.
You might be thinking, “What does that have to do with stronger finances?” There were two lessons I learned on a very practical level from those men.
Though they had very limited financial resources and bananas every day were a luxury they had great faith in God and trusted him for their daily provisions. In conversations throughout our time together I heard their stories of how they lived out Matthew 6:25-27.
Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothes. Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?
But how did/does that apply to me as a financially comfortable American? It reminded me then and continues to remind me to not squander my wealth. According to a February 2023 U.S. Food & Drug Administration report, in the United States approximately 30 percent of our food supply is lost at the retail and consumer levels. Food is the single largest category of material in municipal landfills. A very small part of my being responsible with my finances is to purchase foods I know we will eat and to purchase only enough so there will be no waste, which includes using every banana we buy. Sometimes I fail at that part, but not without thinking about that earlier conversation.
The second thing I learned was their generosity. It had cost them a great deal to even travel to Haus Edelweiss, where we were. Without financial assistance from their friends, church, and others they would not have been able to make the trip and yet they always arrived with small tokens of appreciation for the staff (chocolate was always a favorite) and a small financial gift to be given at the worship service. They expressed their gratitude for what they did have and for what was given to them.
The lesson for me? I have been blessed financially. If I look around me I can easily see many opportunities to share my wealth. Whether it is an extra gift to my church, a donation to my favorite organization or someone in need, or a small token given to someone who has done a kindness, there are many ways to share what I have been given.
The biggest lesson I learned in the meeting that day was not to allow finances to limit me from sharing the gospel. Those men did not have much financially, but they did have a passion to share the Good News of Jesus and they were willing to take the risk to do so in a country that did not welcome their beliefs and did not give them the freedom to openly share them.
These days, whenever I eat a banana, I remember the men from that nation and their faith in God. They did not rely on their own wealth for their daily provisions, but on the faithfulness of God to provide all they needed.
