Large Prayers and Least Coins

by Alexa Smith

After years of tromping through the world’s war zones, refugee camps and HIV/AIDS clinics, Esther Byu is stepping down as the executive secretary of the Fellowship of the Least Coin (FLC). This fall, the organization marks its 50th anniversary jubilee with an international celebration in Malaysia.

“Think what’s happening around the world,” says Byu. Quiet and soft-spoken, her voice rises slightly, “It is so ... overwhelming. The cycles of violence. Sometimes you just feel helpless,” she says, describing her years of aid work on behalf of women, first with the Christian Conference of Asia and now with the Fellowship of the Least Coin. “And I think that prayer is the most powerful [response].”

Every year the Fellowship of the Least Coin (FLC) gives more than $300,000 in grants—for economic literacy training in Rwanda; a weaving program in Myanmar; a shelter for victims of family and sexual violence in Peru; a support center for women in Colombia; an income-generating project for women in Egypt. She’s seen it all.

In her remarks to the plenary session, Byu told her audience that prayer surpasses national boundaries and, if each praying woman put aside a coin, the poorest women could participate alongside more affluent ones. The small coins would add up to a large amount, in the same way that individual prayers among women become a strong force in the world for reconciliation and peace.

Byu says that she nearly burned out earlier in her career, when she was pushing hard to travel, organize program and recover from the second-hand trauma of witnessing the suffering of women across the world. Both praying and being prayed for helps.

“This is,” Byu says, “a prayer movement.” Byu told Gathering participants that in preparing for this jubilee year of the program, the group weighed how to organize a meaningful celebration. “It is not by counting how much money or how many least coins granted to how many projects in 50 years [that we measure] the impact and effect of the Fellowship of the Least Coin Prayer Movement. But it is only through the stories and testimonies of the lives that have been touched and changed by faithful prayers and least coins offered in love, that the wonder of God’s transforming and healing grace can be manifested and the impact of the Fellowship of the Least Coin Prayer Movement can be made known,” she said, adding that the movement depends upon the prayer life of individuals and communities.

Byu says that the group’s board sets FLC’s budget a year in advance, before any money is ever collected. It has never fallen short. And, some years, has closed its books with a balance.

The Holy Spirit is the power behind the movement, she says matter-of-factly. “That’s what prayer is. Like in Romans 8 where it says that the Holy Spirit intercedes for us ... And situations that seem impossible to us are possible for God to change.”