the widow with a fruit farm

This is a testimony we recently shared to friends in Kenya and thought it would be good to share it here as well.

We visited a widow whose husband died two years previously. She was sickly and did not have much idea on how to cope and survive after her husband’s death. She was hoping that we could give her handouts, and financial support for her to continue her livelihood. We asked her what had and she said she has nothing.  She then continued to tell us that her husband was working in their fruit farm, but since his death, she did not have any money to hire workers to work on the farm, and the farm started to decay. As a result of the lack of stewardship, the farm fell into such a bad shape that she could no longer get fruits from it and had to go to the neighbouring farm to work there and got paid very little for it. She was often worried that the neighbouring farm would lay her off.

We asked her repeatedly, what does she have, until she realized she still has a farm. However, to her mind, it was useless simply because she does not have money to hire people to work on it. We then asked her how many hands does her household have. She replied that she has a brother and a sister-in-law, a total of 6 hands.

We asked her how many fruit trees can 6 hands take care of. She replied 50 trees, but the farm has more than 400 trees. We told her to focus on what she already has, and not on what she does not have. We gave her instructions to choose the best 50 trees in the farm and take care of them for 6 months until the next season of harvest, and also to remove all the other dead and sick trees.

We worked out the sums of how much the fruits from the 50 trees will fetch from the market and she was shocked. She was not able to see it before as all her eyes saw was the lack of ability to tend to 400 trees. We gave her a bag of fertilizers and told her that we will visit her again. Six months later, we saw her again. This time she was looking very healthy and was smiling and happy when she saw us. She showed us her farm and to our surprise, more than just the 50 fruit trees, she has also planted flowers to sell at the market.

She has caught the revelation of stewardship and was thriving and very prosperous. In a short span of 6 months, she has turned from being sickly and needy into a family who is able to be a blessing to the community. Instead of asking her pastor for money for medicine, she is now able to give to the pastor to continue his work in other communities. Her testimony has inspired many other families to stop looking at their lack but instead to look at what the Lord has already given, no matter how little it seems.

1 Samuel 21:3 (New King James Version)

3 Now therefore, what have you on hand? Give me five loaves of bread in my hand, or whatever can be found.”

Mark 6:38 (New King James Version)

38 But He said to them, “How many loaves do you have? Go and see.”
And when they found out they said, “Five, and two fish.”

This is the guiding principle we bring with us when we work with the poor. The disciples have just returned from their first mission trip to heal the sick and cast out demons. However, when they were faced with a material need, their eyes began to look for external help but Jesus’ answer was and still applies to us today, what do you have?