Our ministry received a massive donation of pants last year: boxes and boxes of brand new slacks and jeans, still in their original packaging. We have been thinking and praying about how to best use this resource for a while now, and recently we decided to put our plans into action.
photo credit: Jenny Oetzell
With the help of a short term team that was in the area recently, we loaded up two cars with ten large boxes of pants and headed for Abu Muhammed’s village. We have been visiting Abu Muhammed and his family for over a year now, and we are currently looking for ways to expand our ministry in his village.
We met briefly with Abu Muhammed, who was excited to meet the foreigners from our group, then drove down to the town center. The town center basically consists of a few coffee and shawarma shops where the men sit outside and chat in the evening.
We parked, pulled out two tables, and began unloading the boxes of pants. At first, the men just stared at us. They didn’t really understand what was happening. When Bishara told them that we were bringing free pants, they began to get up and come to the table.
Bishara only had the chance to say “In an orderly manner, please, wait your turn,” before the chaos was unleashed. Suddenly, we were surrounded by a huge crowd of men and children all shouting different pant sizes and grabbing pairs of pants as soon as we placed them on the table. Our supply of pants dwindled much faster than we thought possible.
photo credit: Jenny Oetzell
The leader of the short term team remembered that she had left one box of pants in the second car. When she went to grab it, some of the crowd followed her. By the time she got back to the tables (about 20 feet away) she had only one pair of pants left.
We gave out all ten boxes of pants in just a few minutes. After we ran out of pants to give out, we decided to take the team for a prayer walk in the village.
As we walked, we noticed a group of guys playing soccer. The men from our group decided to join them for some friendly play. We chatted with a few guys while those on the makeshift soccer court finished their game, then we jumped in to play. They put all of us foreigners on one team, with one local guy to help us.
The other team was much stronger, but we held our own for a few minutes. Then they started scoring goals right and left. We knew we were supposed to finish and rejoin our group to continue the walk, but we wanted to get at least one goal.
At last, a stray ball came in close to their goal and I was able to head it in just past the goalkeeper. As we left, we gave some of the guys New Testaments and thanked them for letting us play.
Please pray for wisdom as we continue to look into ways to develop our ministry in this village.