MORNING THOUGHT for Saturday April 21^st 2007 broadcast on BBC Radio Jersey, presented by Rose Helie:

Good morning. Earlier this month we were in Romania on Mustard Seed's most recent humanitarian trip. Each day this week I hope to share with you some of our experiences in the last year as we have been taking relief aid to Romania.

This morning I want to tell you about Monti. Monti is the first pensioner who was sponsored through Mustard Seed – it was Alex Stroie social worker and pastor of the little gypsy church who told us about Monti. Monti attended the little church always praying loudly and fervently at the church services. She is 80 years old which is very old for a gypsy as most die younger. She lives in a small 2 roomed shack in the same yard where her daughter and family live. The daughter also attends the church, and 4 years ago they were one of the neediest families so whenever there was money to buy food for poor families or any aid Alex made sure the family received some. He told us how faithful the daughter was about caring for her mother and sharing little whatever they had with her.

So when a couple of years ago I was able to tell Alex we had a new sponsor wanting to assist a family or a pensioner, Alex immediately recommended that Monti should be sponsored.

After a few months Alex told us the sad news that Monti was losing her sight – she already had a glass eye but the remaining eye had a cataract and she was virtually blind. The sponsor generously paid the hundred or so pounds needed to pay for the operation and the next time we saw Monti she was thrilled to see us, telling us we had never looked so good and prayed over us even more loudly and for longer than usual. Monti has always associated us with the regular food parcels and each time we visited her she embraced us and prayed thanking God for His provision. But she always thanks God as well as us.

Monti is now very frail and to be realistic we expect she will not live much longer. When we were in Romania a few weeks ago, when I saw her daughter, I asked about Monti but she said she was at home in bed, which is where she is spending an increasing amount of time now.

Encouraged by the effectiveness of our help to Monti we set up Mustard Seed's Adopt-A-Granny sponsorship scheme where people sponsor needy pensioners either for the winter months or on a permanent basis. This has been running for 2 years now and is one of our most successful projects and offers real help to a number of pensioners.

Unlike many of the pensioners we help, Monti always has no doubt that we are the channels through which the regular food, clothes, other aid and benefits as well as the money for her operation have been provided but she recognizes they are gifts from God and while she does thank us she always thanks God for His provision and asks His blessing on those who help her.

I ask myself if I personally, or if we as a charity, have the same simple understanding that all good things come from God and He deserves our thanks. Do I thank God as spontaneously and automatically for the good things He gives me? And I ask you if you spontaneously thank Him throughout the day. St Paul in his letter to the Thessalonians encourages us to get into the habit of thanking God in every situation.

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