Give and It Will Be Given Unto You

Each year in Kenya, I room with another happy bachelor (temporarily so and not by desire), Reverend George Mitchell, PhD. Many a Baptist Union church he has served in Scotland over the decades and is a man of God whom to know is to love.
One token of his esteem is that he does over 60 funerals a year. You see, George grew up with the toughs of Glasgow and he loves the common man and they turn to him, especially if they have not been the church-going type. They know he understands the edgier side of life and can speak fearlessly yet with compassion to those who have lost their way and need a Pilot of the Soul. And we all know Who that is.
We love him here at Scott Theological College. He is a silver-tongued smithy of words, often now enhanced by power point slides. He writes booklets that he sells to a small market of those he comes in contact with wherever he goes.
But the most endearing thing about George—did I mention also that he plays a respectable trumpet and has a fine voice—is that he does works of compassion all the time. It’s in his blood.
As he goes about Scotland, where he is a popular speaker, he advocates for the poor in Kenya. And people give him money and clothing to stuff in his bags and wallet for the needy when he comes each January.
Not that he’s perfect. Without his wife, Jean, he’d be at sixes and sevens most of the time. I know, I live with guy for three weeks every other year.
But he has a wonderful sense of humor and can tell stories without taking a breath for hours on end. It’s a fine tonic just to pal around with him.
Here’s what he did the last few days of this week.
He went off with Vundi to talk to the leaders of a local Anglican diocese about the biblical work ethic. You see people here just pray for rain when they could be developing local irrigation that could lessen starvation. At the end of his seminar he hands over 250,000 Ksh for an agricultural project Dr. Vundi is spear-heading to help the rural folk grow more food. George has touted this when people back home want to reward George for his ministry to them.
George goes down to visit the gatemen morning and often evening. He has a bag. Take some socks – or maybe a shirt. Here’s a bit o’dosh for you. “O thank you—I’ll be buying food with it today for my family.”
He goes out to the town football pitch (soccer field) to meet the coach and cheer the local kids. “Could you use some uniforms?” So he goes with the coach downtown and buys shirts, shorts, socks in bright colors like that of the Brazil team. “Now could you cut and collect some of the grass here to improve your field and feed some cows the college keeps?” “O sure, Dr. Mitchell, we’ll do just that.” Their eyes are big. They never dreamed they could have uniforms! “You look like Brazil now,” says George, “go play like them then!”
George has bags of ties and scarves to sprinkle about among the students and faculty and staff here. And some shirts and pencils, and dresses and even a suit or two. Whatever he can gather from folk or buy in the thrift.
Each afternoon a tap on the door signals the kids have come looking for a balloon from George’s pocket. “What do you say?” he asks with a broad grin. “Thank you!” they whisper.
Here is a man who teaches Hebrew and Greek, New Testament and numerous other courses in a college in Glasgow, now retired, who knows from his youth what it is to be in want and is doing all he can about it for others in need. He’s not wealthy himself. But people trust him to deliver the goods to the poorest of the poor as well as to needs of all kinds.
There’s a story about a guy in Wisconsin who was a fabulous fisherman. When others were skunked he always came home with something—every time. The local game warden asked how he did it. “Come on out with me and I’ll show you.” So on a day they put out into the middle of the little lake and let down the anchor. The man pulls out a stick of dynamite, lights it, and hands it toward his companion. “You can’t do that! The warden screams. Fishing by stunning them is against the law!!!” “Look,” says the other, still holding out the sizzling TNT, “are you going talk or fish?”
George is a guy who is always fishing. He is a wonderful talker you can listen to all day. But he walks the walk. For Jesus. For the least of these…. For those who are easily invisible as they stand to the side in the shadows while we fly on by on our important errands.
You will be fishers of men, Someone once promised. Are we talking? Or are we fishing? He’s holding out the sizzling stick to me—yes to me.