THE RICH FAMILY OF OUR CHURCH

I will never forget Easter 1946. I was 14, my younger sister Ocy was 12, and my older sister Darlene was 16. We lived at home with our mother, and the four of us knew what it was like to be without many possessions. My father had died five years prior, leaving my mother with seven school-aged children and no money. By 1946, my oldest sisters had married, and my brothers had left the house.

A month before Easter, our church’s pastor announced that a special Easter offering would be collected to benefit a disadvantaged family. He encouraged everyone to save and donate sacrificially. When we came home, we discussed what we could do. We planned to buy 50 pounds of potatoes and live off them for a month. This would allow us to save $20 from our grocery budget for the offering. We also reasoned that if we kept our electric lights turned off as much as possible and avoided listening to the radio, we’d save money on that month’s power bill. Darlene acquired as many home and yard cleaning jobs as she could, and both of us babysat for everyone we knew. For 15 cents, we could buy enough cotton loops to make three potholders for $1. We made $20 selling potholders.

That month was among the best of our lives. Every day, we counted our money to see how much we had saved. At night, we’d sit in the dark and talk about how happy the impoverished family would be to get the money from the church. We had about 80 people in our church, so we estimated that whatever money we had, the offering would be at least 20 times that amount. After all, every Sunday, the pastor encouraged everyone to save for the sacrificial contribution.

The day before Easter, Ocy and I walked to the grocery store and asked the manager to give us three crisp $20 bills and one $10 bill for our change. We ran the entire way home to show Mom and Darlene. We’d never had this much money before. We had trouble sleeping that night since we were so eager. We didn’t care if we didn’t have new clothes for Easter; we had $70 for the sacrificial offering. We couldn’t wait to get to church.

On Sunday morning, it was pouring. We didn’t have an umbrella, and the church was nearly a mile away, but it didn’t matter if we got wet. Darlene had cardboard inside her shoes to plug the holes. The cardboard fell apart, and her feet got wet, but we sat in church proudly, no matter how we looked. I overheard several kids talking about the Smith girls wearing their old dresses. When I saw them in their new clothes, I felt extremely rich.

When the sacrificial offering was taken, we were sitting in the second row from the front. Mom put in a $10 bill, and each of us daughters contributed $20. We sang as we walked home from church. Mom had prepared a surprise for us over lunch. She had bought a dozen eggs, and we enjoyed boiled Easter eggs alongside our fried potatoes.

Late that afternoon, the minister arrived in his car. Mom went to the door, talked to him briefly, then returned with an envelope in her hand. We asked what it was, but she didn’t say anything. When she opened the envelope, a large amount of money fell out. There were three crisp $20 bills, a $10 bill, and seventeen $1 bills. Mom put the money back into the envelope. We didn’t speak, but instead sat and stared at the floor. We had shifted from feeling rich to feeling like poor white trash.

We kids had such a happy existence that we felt sad for anyone who didn’t have our parents and a house full of brothers, sisters, and other children who came by all the time. We thought it was fun to share utensils and see who got the fork or spoon that night. We had two knives, which we distributed to anyone who needed them. I knew we didn’t have many of the things other people did, but I never imagined we were poor. That Easter Day, I discovered we were poor. The minister had handed us money for the poor family, so we must be poor. I did not like being poor. I was so embarrassed by my dress and worn-out shoes that I refused to return to church. Everyone there undoubtedly knew we were impoverished! I thought about school. I was in ninth grade and at the top of my class, which had over 100 students. I worried if the kids at school realized we were poor. I decided I could stop school now that I had completed eighth grade. That was all the law demanded at the time.

We sat silently for a long time. Then it got dark, so we went to bed. We girls went to school and came home for the entire week, and no one said much. Finally, on Saturday, Mom asked what we wanted to do with the money. What did the poor do with their money? We didn’t know. We had never realized we were poor. We didn’t want to go to church on Sunday, but Mom insisted we go. Even though it was a sunny day, we did not talk on the way. Mom started singing, but no one joined in, so she just sang one verse.

At church, we had a missionary speaker. He talked about how African churches construct buildings out of sun-dried bricks, but they need funds to purchase roofing. He said that $100 would cover the cost of constructing a church roof. The minister asked, “Can’t we all make sacrifices to help these poor people?” We grinned at each other for the first time in a week. Mom reached into her purse and brought out the envelope. She handed it to Darlene. Darlene passed it to me, and I gave it to Ocy. Ocy placed it on the offering plate.

When the offering was counted, the minister reported that it was a little more than $100. The missionary was excited. He hadn’t expected such a generous contribution from our small church. He went on to say, “You must have some rich people in this church.” Suddenly, it hit us! We had donated $87 of the “little over $100.” We were the richest family in the church! Hadn’t the missionary just said this? Since that day, I have never been poor again. I’ve always remembered how blessed I am because I have Jesus!