I've always been impressed by how Jesus praised the faith of women. It was a widow who was held up as the epitome of perseverance, able to weary the judge with her tiresome wheedling. It was a desperate woman who sparred with Jesus and claimed a share of Israel's blessing. You can almost see the smile on his lips as Jesus allowed himself to be pushed by the Canaanite woman frantic to get help for her daughter. Congolese women are as adept as their Middle-Eastern sisters.

The first thing I noticed about this woman was her glasses. The huge 70's frames were filled with scratched glass and I couldn't make contact with her eyes. She was dressed in her Sunday best and had a Bible tucked under her arm. It took me some minutes to register what it was that she put down on the table: a brand new blue €20 note. No, I didn't want to change it for her; it was of little value to me. But a European colleague was willing to help this little old lady out of her dilemma and give her some useful currency - the ubiquitous US dollar for unusable euros. She calculated the exchange rate and threw in an extra dollar.

"Eh! Mademoiselle, saidia mimi. Mimi ni masikini." "Help me. I'm a poor woman."

Poor! She had been given €20 by somebody through her church connections - free, gratis, a gift, unexpected, and now she wanted a supplement, an extra, something more!

But you had to applaud her for her audacity, her willingness to push her luck.

I wonder what Jesus would have done.

Blessings,

Bridget