ANBLIK Weblog

As Edwin Ogenio is visiting Europe this time for a longer period after moving to the United States more than 12 years ago, many memories has been triggered him. Especially, memories about mission trips that Edwin Ogenio made with teams of fellow Christians to countries like Poland and Albania right at the end of their communistic and dictatorial governmental regime era, comes to mind. “We were warmly welcomed, by often times very poor Christians, who were living under deplorable conditions, with no hot water or heater and primitive sanitary conditions to name a few”, remembers Edwin Ogenio.

Edwin Ogenio says: “Yet, all these wonderful poor Christians were willing to happily take care of us in every possible way they could. They gave us shelter in their very small homes, and gathered food daily from each other in order to feed us. Besides all of that they loved to pray”.

Edwin Ogenio also remembers visiting, at that same time, an American missionary couple in Albania that in contrast to the poor Albanian Christians seemed to have it all. They had a nice large home in a prominent area of the city, with all the comfort imaginable, including air conditioning, satellite television, and the big double door fridge filled to the brim with groceries. Edwin Ogenio clearly remembers how it struck him that this missionary couple in their fifties was very distant and unfriendly. Edwin Ogenio did not feel welcome at all. They did not seem to be interested or love the poor people of Albania that they were supposed to reach out to with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. “I was dumbfounded”, says Edwin Ogenio.

When Edwin Ogenio moved to America, all he heard was how Christians were sup-posed to be rich and have stuff. Many of them said they had the desire to have a ministry in order to be a blessing to the poor. They would, and still will, do anything to achieve that goal, like sowing financial seeds expecting to become wealthy in return, or follow teachings that tell them that God’s blessings are being bestowed upon them in accord-ance with how well they manage to keep a pure and unselfish motive for having and desiring riches. “I also heard many well known preachers and pastors teach on how to unlock the secrets to your financial success, making you believe that being rich has to be seen as a sign of God’s favor and that being poor is basically a curse”, adds Edwin Ogenio.Edwin Ogenio: “Down the road many believers get disillusioned and discouraged because their dream of becoming rich ultimately did not come to pass. I started asking myself the question; “Why do we attribute so much importance to wealth, and give so much honor to those who possess them?” Do Christians who want to become wealthy really desire to help the poor while waiting for their fortune to come through? It is interes-ting to me, that for the five years of me giving out food and clothing to the poor and the needy in Los Angeles on a daily basis, I have only en-countered less than a handful of people who were doing the same thing, where only one of them was a Christian. I concluded that wealth, power and status does not mean anything to God, and that being rich or poor has nothing to do with whether you are favored by God or not.”