She gave me coffee, hot and sugary coffee. She looked to be about twelve. She smiled shyly. I hadn’t asked for coffee. If I’d asked for anything, it would have been something to cool me off after an hour’s dusty ride in the highlands of Guatemala.

She gave me coffee. I looked at our diverse group of Kansas City-area Presbyterians in the small sanctuary of the El Buen Pastor Church.

She gave me coffee. I thought of the warnings about the need to boil water, to throw in water purification tablets.

She gave me coffee. I looked at the cup and marvelled at the incongruity of glass mugs in a church that had electricity only when someone could rig a line to a truck battery.

She gave me coffee. It smelled good. I heard how the roof was going to be taken down and the benches and wood moved to a new church. I heard that the girl’s family would have to walk two hours to church, and they would walk it gladly. I thought about my own commitment to worship. How far would I be willing to go?

She gave me coffee. The mug was warm. In halting Spanish I asked her mother about her family. I thought I understood what she said. I told her about my family. She seemed to understand what I said.

This evening Christians around the world will share in bread and wine, two very simple gifts that not one of us knows fully how much we really need. In the signs of Christ’s body and blood are God’s revolutionary promises to you that your sins are forgiven, that you will have strength and power to do the ministry he has entrusted to you, and that you will have everlasting life. It is up to us to receive. It is up to us to give.

She gave me a cup of coffee. She gave me all that she had. She gave in faith and love. She gave me what I needed but knew not. She gave me promise, and power, and hope.

—Rev. Allison K. Seed, pastor, Trinity Presbyterian Church, Independence, Missouri, and chair, General Assembly Council