Which people are there but invisible to you? And to which people is your attention naturally drawn? Young families? Students? The Lord Jesus often viewed things in a rather different way from us, and noticed the people we overlook. Contemplating worshippers at the temple he drew his disciples’ attention to a poor old widow (Luke 21.1-4).

Lonely in church

Here’s a story of an old widow in our congregation who we overlooked. We didn’t overlook her completely. Some of our godly women spend much time looking after her and having her around for Sunday lunches. But she tended to get neglected in the turmoil of the after service coffee time, with no one talking with her. We quite rightly received a letter of rebuke from her carer. ‘Lonely in church! It’s not good enough!’ We had to take that on the chin and pull our socks up. We weren’t seeing her the way Jesus would have done. But, back to the story.

The card writer

Olive – that’s her name – loves to write greetings cards to all kinds of people. Sometimes she includes verses of Scripture, sometimes poems, sometimes words of encouragement, like ‘Dear Pastor, I really enjoyed your choice of hymns on Sunday morning’. That’s great. But God used her card writing in a way which went far beyond our limited horizons.

We support a missionary couple in Africa. The man is a Bible translator and his wife is a medic. They send back prayer letters in the usual way, keeping the church in contact. In the wife’s work out in a remote area, she came across a boy in a poor village with the most terrible cancerous growth on his hand. It was large, unsightly and dangerous. With this disfigurement he was something of an outcast in the village. He would go around with his hand covered by a dirty old rag and keep away from people to try to avoid their disgust. It urgently required surgery from a doctor with a high level of proficiency. The medical team knew what needed to be done but could not do it immediately.

But during this time suddenly something happened that lifted the boy’s spirits. Cards started arriving for him! People were utterly astonished. No one in that village ever received post. But now letters started arriving addressed to the poor outcast boy. It was the talk of the village. As a result the boy’s confidence grew. Someone was thinking of him. Someone cared. Someone was praying. Of course, that someone was Olive.

A way forward

Thankfully that was not the end of the story. The medics eventually found an old retired missionary surgeon in his eighties living in the north of the country who was prepared to take a look at the boy’s cancerous hand. A very difficult operation ensued in which it was necessary for the boy to lose a finger, but otherwise the terrible growth was completely removed. As I write, the situation is still in the balance with the possibility that the problem might spread to other parts of his body. But right now there is good hope of a full recovery.

When they were back on furlough earlier in the year, the first thing our missionary friends did when they got to church was to look out for Olive – the old lady we had overlooked. They wanted to tell her the story of what a great difference her simple cards had made. And it all came as a joyful surprise to Olive and to us. Miscalculating in church?