Several years ago, I was heading up a USAID project in Southern Africa and I found myself in Mozambique at an agricultural experiment station. The grant I had contained little room for unplanned expenses. But with that grant, we trained more than 15,000 farmers in Lesotho, Mozambique, and Zimbabwe and greatly improved corn yields for those farmers.

But on this day, I needed to go to another location. I found a minibus going that way, and I paid the equivalent of about $5, and got in. Occupancy should have been twelve, but I counted more than 20 people. It took us 5 hours to go about 130 miles.

I got the seat on the hump next to the driver and had to put my arm around him so I could breathe. The bus was hot, everyone was sweaty, and the smell of the disinfectant used to clean wounds was thick. Many on the bus had bandages on extremities and eyes. But everyone had a smile.

The driver said that just about all the passengers were going to a hospital for surgery or follow-ups, Many made the trip weekly. The road was awful. The potholes were huge and could be more than 4 feet deep. We hit one and had to sit on the edge of the pothole and to wait for the water to evaporate so the engine would start. The temperature climbed past 100..

I was hungry. My breakfast had been gone for hours. In my backpack I had two packets of cookies.. I got a package out, opened it, and then handed them back to the seat behind me. I did the same with the other package. I had just given away all of my food and had kept nothing for me.

Soon there was a tap on my shoulder and a small bag of potato chips to share, some salty crackers followed, and some homemade food and there were always smiles and thank you’s given. Then one of my cookie packets came back with one cookie left in it. The lady behind me took it out and handed it to me. And then the other one came back with one left, and it was handed to me. The kindness brought tears to my eyes.

I have so much to learn. And that day I learned the lesson Mom and Dad tried to teach me. If you put others first, good things will happen.

Dear Lord, help us to remember that practicing generosity is what you expect of all who walk with you. Amen.

This devotion was written by Neal Esh and read by Jim Stovall.

Grace for All is a daily devotional podcast produced by the members of the congregation of First United Methodist Church in Maryville, Tennessee. With these devotionals, we want to remind listeners on a daily basis of the love and grace that God extends to all human beings, no matter their location, status, or condition in life.

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First United Methodist Church is a lively, spirit-filled congregation whose goal is to spread the message of love and grace into our community and throughout the world. We are located on the web at https://1stchurch.org/.