Joy is a sign of generosity. When you are full of joy, you move faster and you want to go about doing good for everyone.
Mother Teresa
I wish I could tell you his real name. There’s something powerful about knowing a person’s name and saying it aloud. It helps us not to forget it. But I can’t tell you. It’s weighty knowing that so many details about our dear Russian friends could place them in danger. Instead I will tell you his American name: John.
John is a refugee from a Muslim, Russian-speaking country where it is illegal to be a Christian. Every time I hear his story of faith and about the persecution and the humiliation he endured because of it, I weep. His family’s story intersected our family’s story nearly ten years ago, and the fabric of who we are and what we do has flowed from the crossroads of this relationship. Since that fateful day when our families met at a local park (we are where we are for a reason), just months after the United Nations gave them sanction in my town, we have forged a deep and meaningful relationship that has turned friends into family.
John has been imprisoned for his faith again and again, in fact, so many times that when I asked him how many he could not give me a number other than dozens. He was beaten for the gospel many times and humiliated in ways he would not say. He was isolated from his underground faith community. His family members were kidnapped because he could not, no, he would not stop telling people about Jesus. He was banished from his home and country and lost everything he possessed—house, cars, business—everything in just twenty-four hours. He was separated from his wife and small children for agonizing weeks. He was forced to start over with refugee status in America and to live by faith. Today, he still chooses every day to risk his safety and comfort to spend the rest of his life telling people about Jesus in extremely dangerous places. My children have been raised in the shadow of this hero of our faith, and his life makes me ask one question: Why? Why does someone risk giving everything—even their life—away for the cause of Jesus?
I can think of only one reason—joy.
Our friend John takes James 1:2–4 to heart: “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything” (NIV). I love the way the Message translates verses 2–3, “Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides. You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors.”
This kind of joy gives great delight because it provides deep satisfaction in our souls. When we are satisfied with Jesus, we stop searching for things to fill us. When we give, instead of feeling empty we are filled. I’ve seen people in abject poverty in unthinkable conditions give all they have. Several years ago I sat in a home in Ethiopia and ate the last bit of food a young mother had in her house. She didn’t give because she could afford it; she gave because it gave her joy to share what she’d been given. She taught me that when we depend on Jesus for everything—even our next meal—it doesn’t matter what we have or don’t have. Jesus makes what we have enough because he is enough.
John and his sweet wife are raising their children in America now. It isn’t their first choice. Even after all these years, they miss their home, their extended family, and their country. But God placed them here for a reason, and they are living full of joy, sharing what they have with everyone they meet. Their children have nearly lost their Russian accents, although they are fluent in their native language. Their oldest daughter, whom we’ll call Sarah, knows that around the globe and in the country she was born in are thousands of families worshiping God in secret because it’s against the law to assemble with other believers publicly. If they are caught they face beating and imprisonment and even death. She knows this because it is her parents’ story.
But she doesn’t remember this life. She smiles her dimpled grin and her long braid falls over her shoulder as she tells me: “I love America. This is home.” She was just three years old when her family found safety in the United States as religious refugees. Now as US citizens they lead a global movement to spread the gospel in dozens of countries.
“I don’t remember much about my first home, but I do remember seeing children in poverty,” Sarah says. And this memory coupled with a new life in America caused her family to sponsor two Compassion International children in Africa more than five years ago. “My brother and I use the pocket change we earn by doing chores to sponsor kids in Uganda.” But they’re not stopping there. “I want to sponsor more kids because I enjoy seeing how happy they are with my help, and I want them to be as happy as I am. They don’t have all the things we have, and I want to give them something they need,” she explains compassionately.
Giving is central to the life of a Christian. It’s a tenet of our faith, the foundation God revealed to us through his ultimate act of generosity when he gave his only Son. So it makes me wonder, If we aren’t giving are we truly joyful?
The ministry of Mercy House is fulfilling, gut-wrenching work for our family. Part of that work introduces us to selfless people who work in hard places in very difficult situations. My kids are growing up as eyewitnesses to this beautiful, brutal space. The one thing that splits my soul wide open is the stunning obedience we have seen in these selfless people—people like John and his family. We see them count the cost and continue to give, not because they are being paid well or becoming known; it’s quite the opposite. They continue to give because the more they give the deeper their joy.
On our last family trip to Kenya, we visited the homes of several women we are working to help. One of the homes we will never forget was that of a young mother from the Street Hope artisan group we began in 2016. The group is composed of mothers—most of them still teenagers—who were homeless. They lived on the streets and survived by begging during the day and prostituting at night, all with babies strapped on their backs.
Slowly, one by one, these women learned to sew by hand and began making tiny felt hearts for fair-trade tic-tac-toe games we sold in America. It’s surprising to think something so small could have such a big impact, but these little hearts (and the big heart of God) changed their lives. We walked the path to one such young mother’s home, following the stream of sewage that eventually led to a river of waste. The deeper you go into a slum, the worse the conditions get. But that didn’t stop her from beaming that day as she showed us her little house next to the river of sewage. She was proud to have a home.
As my family crowded onto her couch, the only furniture in the home besides a bed, she told us her story. “I am an orphan. I have been on the street alone since I was nine years old. I did whatever I could to survive. I was pregnant by age eleven. This is my son,” she said as she hugged her flailing eight-year-old boy, who was nearly as tall as she was. Due to her age and size, he had been born too early and was severely handicapped as a result.
I looked at my family. We were all crying. Terrell’s shoulders shook as he silently sobbed. I was pretty sure it had something to do with our ten-year-old in his lap. This was a true story, and it was simply unthinkable. At just nineteen, HIV positive, and the mother of an eight-year-old, she had already lived such a cruel life.
“I have been alone my entire life. Until now,” she said as she started crying. Our family, along with our Kenyan directors, put our arms around her and we cried together.
I have had many conversations with my kids about the hopelessness we witness and what it does deep in your soul; it begs you to bring hope. Showing our kids the brokenness in our world breaks them, but this is how they learn compassion. It’s how the needs of the world become needs of their own. It’s how they become a part of someone else’s story.
Before we left we looked into the beautiful, dark eyes of this young woman, and we made her a promise: hope is on the way. We returned home desperate to do something to provide hope in the form of jobs for her and the other women we had visited. We made phone calls and hired teachers. We rented a small room in a central location so these women would have a place to “go to work.” We stepped out in faith because we believe that God wants us to share what we have with people who have less.
Two weeks later I sat in a hotel room working on the book you hold in your hands. The next morning I woke up to an email that outlined the budget for a kiln, two looms, and supplies. To bring hope would cost $5,100. I cried at the overwhelming number. As a nonprofit ministry, our budget is always bigger than our pockets because the need to empower women in poverty and oppression is priceless. And the more women you help, the more women need to be helped. And the more you give, the deeper you’re drawn into generosity.
As I sat alone in that hotel room, crying and wondering how I would continue to write when I felt so heavy, I put this on my Facebook status: “I woke up to a need in Kenya to provide looms and a kiln and supplies. Maybe someone woke up with a desire to meet it?”
Fifteen minutes later I got this text from a wildly generous sister who has given and given and given some more because she is addicted to the profound joy that comes when you give your life away: “My family would like to provide looms and a kiln and pottery glazes.”
The dam broke. Hope was on the way. I didn’t just cry, I wailed. I called my family from that hotel room and bawled into the phone. And it wasn’t just my joy. It was our joy because they knew of the need for jobs, and they rejoiced when the miracle came. My kids had witnessed the hopelessness, and they needed to see the hope as badly as I did.
In the next text my friend continued with these stunning words: “God doesn’t call us to a convenient life—he calls us to an important life. . . . We aren’t meant for self-gratification, but eternal greatness . . . and greatness is giving our lives away. Thank you for giving us a chance to serve with you, Kristen. You and Terrell are a gift to us! Maybe someday I can sit at some looms and by some kilns and hear how God has made miracles happen—and we will tell those stories, sister.”
Oh, I’m glad there wasn’t an eyewitness to the unleashing of my joy that day in the hotel room. I was quite loud, and there was a lot of snot. The words on my phone and the money in the mail were messages from God himself to my family: This is working. This crazy idea to provide dignified jobs for women as a road to the gospel is working. Because I am working. Keep giving and I’ll keep filling you with unparalleled joy.
One of the greatest joys in my life is getting to live out my purpose in front of my kids. Terrell and I were talking the other night before bed about how we cannot wait to get to work every day. We cannot wait to see what God will do. We get to live out this adventure and witness the miraculous, and our children are eyewitnesses to his holiness and what he can do with regular people.
Kids are our toughest critics. One time we asked them to grade us on our parenting in various areas, and we barely passed. We never did that again! When our children see God do something extraordinary with our generosity, we don’t impress them (they know our weaknesses, remember?). They don’t see us—they see Jesus.
According to a Focus on the Family article titled, “Raising a Cheerful Giver: Teaching Children to Give Generously,” “Researchers seeking to understand the roots of compassion and generosity have sought answers from a much-celebrated group of heroes: those who risked everything to rescue Jews from the horrors of the Holocaust.” The article then cites Jan Johnson’s book Growing Compassionate Kids. She summarizes the findings of Doug Huneke, who wrote a biography of Hermann “Fritz” Graebe and conducted interviews with three hundred others who rescued Jews during World War II. Huneke identifies ten traits these individuals had in common:
What an amazing list! It’s inspiring to think we are raising kids who really can change the world.
Joy isn’t reserved just for people with money. We don’t have to be rich to be generous. I love this quote by Timothy L. Smith, author of Donors Are People Too: “Generosity is not something that comes later after you accumulate wealth. It’s something you live out wherever you are in life today. It’s not something that ‘shows up’—it’s a lifestyle you cultivate.”2
While I respect the work of Dave Ramsey, who encourages people to get out of debt and live debt free, I have always taken issue with his principle that we should live in such a way that later we can give like no one else. He encourages people to “give like no one else” after they have saved and accumulated wealth. This is well and good, but I don’t believe God wants us to wait until we have wealth. There is no “later” in terms of the gospel. There is only now. How else can we cultivate a life of giving? Giving is not a lifestyle we adopt when we have money; giving starts today. It’s something we teach our kids today. Given the fact that Americans are among the richest people in the world, we have to live like no one else (that is, not chasing the American dream) and begin right now where we are to give like no one else.
Even those in poverty can raise kids to be generous because the root of generosity isn’t wealth. The root of generosity is compassion, empathy, humility, and a strong work ethic. It’s teaching our kids to share what they’ve been given—their time, talents, and resources. Sometimes generosity looks like giving money away, but sometimes it looks like the child of a Russian refugee giving piano lessons so she can sponsor more children. Instilling these qualities and characteristics into our kids not only makes them generous but also leads them to satisfying joy.
I can’t tell you my refugee friend’s real name, but I can tell you his words. After sharing his powerful testimony with a group of my friends in the nonprofit world, he closed with these heart-stopping words: “Christians are bored with Christianity and their lives because they are just reading the stories in the Bible. But I don’t want to just read and hear the stories. I want to live them. I want to be in the epicenter of what God is doing. There are people today—in China, the Middle East, and around the world—living the stories of the Bible—right now, at this moment. The cure for boredom requires us to step into spaces that are out of our control.” And then he urged us with these countercultural words that I will never forget: “Do not invest your life on things you can lose in twenty-four hours.”
How do we take these prophetic words and let them sink into our everyday lives? How do we let them shape who we are, how we parent, and ultimately, how we live? We can
Every year we host a giving day for Mercy House called She Is Priceless (sheispriceless.org). But we don’t raise money just for our work of empowering women globally; we also raise money for other groups doing the same thing. In the world of fund-raising, doing this might seem like we are missing the point because it certainly divides the money we need rather than multiply it. But that’s only one way to look at it. We take a different approach: we are becoming a part of another organization’s story. We are linking arms with them and saying we believe in what you do so much that we want our people to know about it too. And we are able to step into spaces and go to places we’ve never been because we are telling their story along with ours. We are doing it because of joy. When their ministry needs are met, impoverished and oppressed women are helped in Jesus’s name, and that brings us all joy. The lesson I want to teach my kids is this: when we give to others we aren’t subtracting from our own joy, we are multiplying it.