He Remembered

Today I had a great chance to see God in action when I stopped by to see an elderly couple who live about 30 miles from me.  They are my landlord’s parents.  I just met them last Sunday.

Now that we have lived in Togo long enough to pay off all of the advances we paid on our rent to get our house ready, I contacted my landlord – who now lives in America (ironic, isn’t it?) – about how we should go about paying our rent.  He had a couple of ideas, but one was that I should give some money every month to his parents.  It’s not a hefty sum – about $40 per month.  The only catch one is that he doesn’t want anyone, especially his brothers or sisters – to know about the money.  That’s all part of the dysfunction of most Togolese families, but maybe I’ll go into that some other time.

When I visited last Sunday, two of the old couple’s children were there, so I didn’t say anything about the money.  I just brought them greetings and news from their son in America, which they were glad to receive.

Today, I was more successful as no one else was around.  When I gave the couple the money, the mother told me that she had just prayed this very morning that her son in America would remember her.  Together, the couple exclaimed “Mawu li, Mawu li nuto.”  Which translates as something like, “God is Real; God is Really Real!”

Yesterday I said something about idolatry not conforming to Reality.  Today, God showed himself to be Real to this couple through a specific answer to a specific prayer. 

The Reality of God cannot be demonstrated in a test tube or in a classroom, but only through daily dependence on him.