Offering out of your abundance

"put in all"

Luke 21:4

Okay, let's stay on the Olympics theme, shall we?  I'm enjoying this.

I love the Olympics. I can't wait until the time is right ~ finances and family and God's will ~ for us to attend again.  2014 is in Russia, and 2018 is in South Korea.  We don't anticipate being able to attend either of those.  And I'm really only interested in the Winter Games, so that rules out Rio in 2016, and whoever wins the bid for the 2020 Summer Games.  So that leaves me with looking toward the 2022 Winter Games.   The countries who have applied for those games are Kazakhstan, Finland, France, Germany, Poland, Romania, Spain, Switzerland, Norway and Ukraine.  I would love to visit any of those places.  The IOC won't make the decision for a few years, though, so I've got some time to daydream.

Anyhow, today's Olympic story is about a wonderful athlete named Eric Moussambani.  Remember him?

Oh, you don't?

Do you want me to wait while you look up his story on the internet?  Or should I just tell you?  It's a great story. 

The year was 2000.  The host was Sydney, Australia.  The event was 100 meter Freestyle Swimming.  Moussambani was an athlete from the country of Equatorial Guinea.  Near as I can tell, he was one of only four Olympic athletes from that country, ever.  He and a woman named Paula Barila Bolopa were both swimmers invited to compete, without having qualified for the Olympics, through a program designed to encourage developing countries.

But he had never swum 100 meters before.  There wasn't even pool that big in all of Equatorial Guinea.  And he'd been told he'd be swimming in a heat to qualify for the 50 meter event.  Now, all of a sudden, he'd be swimming twice as far. 

And if that wasn't hard enough, he'd be swimming the heat alone.  There were to be three of them in that heat, but two were disqualified for false-starting.  So when the gun went off, in he went.  And he swam and he swam.

You can probably find a clip of it online.  I vividly remember watching it.  He was clearly struggling, but he kept going.  And the crowd just kept cheering.  It was a wonderful moment.  It was inspirational; exactly what the Olympics are supposed to be about.  Because Citius, Altius, Fortius sometimes means Faster than you thought you could.  Higher than you ever tried.  Stronger than you used to be.

Eric Moussambani didn't win a medal.  He didn't even qualify for the 100M.  His Olympic experience was done after his heat.  So by a lot of standards, he was a failure.  But from his standards, it was huge.  Enormous.  Herculean.  He gave all he had.

photo credit: guardian.co.uk

God loves that.

~ "He saw a certain poor widow

      putting in two mites.  

So He said, ' Truly I say to you

that this poor widow has put in more than all...

out of her poverty 

she put in all the livelihood that she had' " ~

Luke 21:2-4