THE IMPOSSIBLE GOD AND THE PENCIL

On the island of Mindanao, in the southern archipelago of the Philippines, is a small coastal barrio called San Jose. A number of years ago an evangelist by the name of Gonzalez founded a church there. The church grew and a number of people accepted Jesus Christ as Lord. Soon nearly all in the community became Christians, and a school was started. When the elder Gonzalez died, his son Aley carried on with the ministry. Aley believed in a God of miracles and told the people in the barrio and church that the age of miracles had not passed. Many believed him. Both the church and the school continued to grow. One afternoon the second grade teacher announced a test. He told all the children to be sure to bring a pencil and paper the next day for the test. Since most of the chil-dren were very poor, they did not ordinarily carry pencils and paper to school. The following morning all the children showed up with pencil and paper except one. This little eight-year-old, brown-skinned Filippino boy came from an extremely poor family. He lived in a palm-thatched hut and had no shoes or proper shirt, but only a ragged pair of shorts to wear to school. He had found a single sheet of notebook paper but he had no pencil. The teacher told him he was sorry, but he could not write the test since he had no pencil. He would have to wait outside until the test was over. Heartbroken, the little boy walked out of the class and sat on the front steps of the little school building which was also used as a church on Sundays. He remembered Pastor Aley Gonzalez's sermons on miracles, and about the great God Who did impossible things. “Dear God,” he prayed, closing his eyes and raising his face toward the sky, “Please send me a pencil. I want to take the test.” He opened his eyes and looked all around, expecting that God would drop the pencil out of the sky. But there was nothing. Only the shiny white pebbles on the sand, the sound of the wind rustling the branches of the coconut palms, and the gentle lapping of the surf on the nearby beach. His eyes filled with tears as he sat down, his arms folded around his knees, his single sheet of note-book paper in his hand. As children will do, he rolled the notebook paper into a small cylinder, rolling it back and forth between his open palms, tears dripping down his cheeks… Then, as he twirled the paper in his hands, he felt something hard - round and hard - inside the paper. He quickly unrolled the notebook paper, and there in the middle was a bright, shiny yellow pencil! It had a brand new eraser on the one end, and the other end was machine-sharpened! He quickly ran into the school-house, waving his pencil. The teacher asked him where he found such a magnificent pencil. The little boy paused, thought, and finally said, “The impossible God gave it to me.” I was in San Jose the following year, a guest of Aley Gonzalez. I talked to the little boy. He showed me his pencil. He had used it over and over and had broken the lead a number of times and often sharpened it with his father's machete. But it was still a good pencil, and there were no other pencils like his in all of the barrio. The reason pencils appear to little Philippino boys, the reason Davids kill Goliaths, the reason unlearned fishermen preach with power while some learned theologians often elicit nothing more than yawns from their listeners, the reason old men capture walled cities and slay giants - is childlikeness. They believe in a God Who fulfils dreams and does the impossible! [From: Where eagles soar by Jamie Buckingham, Kingsway Publications , 1980].