What 10 Eggs Taught Me About Gratefulness

We bought our Thanksgiving Turkey from a man who attends the church in Sangano. We didn’t intend to buy a turkey when we left for church that morning so we hadn’t come prepared to carry it home with us.

Now, I know how to butcher a turkey. I didn’t know how when we got to Africa, but I’ve learned since then. Just because I know how, doesn’t mean I enjoy doing it. I’d rather pay someone to clean it for me. Besides, I was in my church clothes and I couldn’t conceive of a way we could get two *live* turkeys home with us. So we included the butchering cost in our purchase price. 

As I watched the turkey butchering process, I noticed right away that the young men we’d hired to clean the turkeys weren’t actually the ones doing it. Zizi’s wife was doing most of the work. It irritated me. I told Zizi that if I’d have known his wife would end up doing the work, I’d have paid her to do it in the first place. I told him I wasn’t going to pay those guys, but I was going to give the money to his wife instead. It was only fair.

Zizi insisted I couldn’t do this. We’d already agreed on it. So I told him he and his wife were to take the offals (heart, liver, gizzard). We gathered them up and one of his daughters carried them into their house.

Sadly, I only had enough money with me to pay what we’d agreed to the guys who didn’t do much of the work. So, the next week I sent a little money to Zizi’s wife in payment for all her work in cleaning the turkeys. It wasn’t much. I felt embarrassed sending it but at the time it was all I had.

The next Sunday we were at Sangano again (we alternate weeks between the four churches, two one week, two the next). As soon as service was over, Zizi’s wife pulled me into their house and handed me 10 small, white eggs.

She said, “Thank you for buying me a soda and biscuits (cookies).” She’d used the money I gave her to buy herself a treat. (What woman doesn’t enjoy a treat now and then?)

Eggs are expensive in the refugee camp, almost half again of what we pay in town for a tray. She’d given me a valuable gift, far more valuable than what I’d given her. 

God’s gifts to us are the same. They are far more valuable than anything we can bring to Him. All I can give God is what He has already given me. 

I have nothing.

He has everything.

Yet He wants us to give ourselves to him — after He has done everything to redeem us. We are valuable to Him because of who He is and what He has done, not because of who we are.

Paul says it best:

Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable gift. 

II Corinthians 9:15

(The bright yellow yoke on the right is from one of the eggs we were given. The one on the left is an egg I bought in town. Most eggs here have yolks that are so light they are almost white.)