Christian Unity Ministries

Unity News

May, 2007

The Shirt Off Her Back

by Ann Farris

If a man needs your coat….

Working in Romania, on behalf of Becky's Hope and at the invitation of my dear friend, Lidia Oprean, was another excursion into the nature of the human spirit, an affirmation of our having been made in the image of God.

I have often wondered how that worked exactly, our being made in the image of God: so many people, so much variety, so many different appearances, a Babel of languages and laughter.

What I currently know to be true was confirmed in Romania. The common thread that runs throughout the human race and connects us to God and to each other is a divine spirit, desiring to love and to be loved. Nowhere was that truth more apparent to me than in Romania.

Ours (Blake Coffee's and mine) was an opportunity to support Lidia and to further the ministry of Becky's Hope, named in honor of Lidia's daughter and in honor of their hope for the future of all children with special needs. The event orchestrated by Lidia included approximately 50 parents of special needs children and pastors, leaders in the effort to meet the needs of special children and to do so on the wings of Christianity. The event was hosted in a retreat setting in the hills of Romania, nestled among an abundance of God's work, evidenced through nature.

For four days we taught, learned, sang, prayed, discussed, laughed, and cried, studying together the work of Blake's heart, “Trusting God's People Again.” We put ourselves in the places of Moses, Peter, Nehemiah, Jacob, Shadrach and friends, and Paul and identified life lessons for ourselves and for Becky's Hope ministries. This was preparatory work—for living a well-lived life; for the July 22, 2007 retreat scheduled for moms and siblings of special needs children; and for me.

In Romania I saw this divine connection, the desire to love and to be loved, on every street corner and in every home. It looked like being hugged by a bear of a man as I stepped out of the Bucharest airport; that stranger-no-more is the production manager of the Romania Christian television station. This divine connection looked like being comfortably hosted in the homes of strangers, angels unaware. It looked like strangers giving me precious gifts, precious because they could not afford to give them, their widow's mite. It looked like one of Romania's religions and political icons kissing my hand. And, finally, it looked like the coat and cloak that Jesus talked about in Matthew 5:40.

One morning while greeting our class members, I complimented a new friend on her suit, her Sunday best outfit, most likely her only Sunday best outfit. It was a lovely mauve color, outlined in lace, made of a really soft fabric. The next morning, she entered our room wearing more casual clothes, having folded her beautiful suit over her arm. She extended that arm, and her love, to me, wanting to give me her suit as a present. Because I had admired it, she wanted to present it to me. It was both her coat and her cloak.

The human spirit, the spark that connects, the desire to love and to be loved, is alive and well in Romania, among a generous people who live in a country that honors God.

The shirt off her back….

Dr. Ann Farris is an Executive Board member and long-time friend of Christian Unity Ministries. She is a Bible teacher, a leadership coach, and currently serves on the faculty of the graduate school of Education for Tarleton State University . She and her husband, Gerald, live in Killeen , Texas .

___________________________________________________