Widows' Might

In her high-pitched, staccato voice, Martha said, "Pastor, I did something that makes me very scared. I drove through the park and hit one of those birds. Someone told me I would be fined $1,000 for killing a bird, so I hid it."

"Where did you hide the bird?"

"I picked the feathers off and cooked it for a long time," she said, grinning. "I ate it for a week. It was two times bigger than a duck."

Martha is a Vietnamese refugee who, with her two-year-old son, had been resettled in our town. She became a Christian and joined our church. Our conversation about the bird led to the discovery that her menu often consisted of road-kill: rabbits, ducks, even a deer that she hauled home, butchered and put into her small freezer. She was attempting to live on wages of $2.25 an hour as a dishwasher in a Chinese restaurant.

Martha is also a widow, but because she was new to our church and because of the language barrier, our church members did not fully understand she was destitute. But God ...