Description
Spirit of Sharing came about as a response to our founder?s experience growing up in a very poor neighborhood. As a young boy, he was frustrated with many uninvited neighbors regularly showing up in his grandmother?s home for lunch and dinner. He remembered one beautiful afternoon in 1983. The weather was bright, hot and humid. He came back from school and smelled an erikaicon soup and thought to himself, ?Well, I am going to enjoy the soup this afternoon and surely there would be left over for me tomorrow.? Seating at the edge of the clay-mud next to the entrance door, he was determined to wall-off any neighbor that attempted to get into his house for lunch. His face was firm and frowned to help him convey the message ?you are not invited.? He attempted to block the neighbors from getting in to no avail. Needless to say he had to put out this behavior in such a way that his grandma would not notice until he was caught in the act. His grandmother, who trusted in the basic goodness of everyone in her family, wanted to know why he was not open to sharing meals with neighbors. When he was done arguing that he does not like people depending on them and not working hard to provide for their family, his grandma held him closer and lovingly said to him, ?Nna di m, they too need to eat. We are privileged to be able to share with them, and it is good to share.? She took him to a scripture passage that read, ?come you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world, for I was hungry you gave me to eat? whatever you did to the least of my children, you did for me.? That epiphany never left him. Later in the evening, after dinner, he used his discretion to apologize to everyone in the house. His grandma was impressed with his gesture. She said to him, ?Nna di m, I am proud of you.? Entering a seminary formation through her grandma?s influence, he sought for ways to help others in need. In 1996, he started a small scale sharing ministry where he visited the extremely poor, homebound, orphans, sick, handicapped, single abused moms in several southeast Nigerian villages and shared some of what he had. Recalling his discussion with grandma regarding his efforts to stop the less privileged from depending on his family for good meals, he said, ?I now see it as a privilege to be in the position to help them and to share. I did not know at a time the meaning of what I was doing. I am only grateful to God for using that incident to change me and influence my religious vocation to serve and share.? The motivation to share was further sustained by the great needs in many poor communities beyond the Okpo village. Our founder, in his resolve to reach out and his trust in the generosity of God?s people, approached some of us interested in outreach ministry. We assisted him in having Spirit of Sharing Ministry incorporated as a non-profit organization in Washington State. Since then, we have been serving in communities which have never been visited by a humanitarian organization, thanks to our donors. Thank you immensely for helping to make our world a better place for our children especially the most isolated.
