Thursday, September 3, 2015

First Fruits

 "Honour the LORD with thy substance, and with the firstfruits of all thine increase:"
Proverbs 3:9

 "..Bring the firstfruits of our ground, and the firstfruits of all fruit of all trees, year by year, unto the house of the LORD:"
Nehemiah 10:35

Here in Mexico, people take these verses seriously. Many saints in our church have fruit trees, gardens, or some sort of farm animal. It has been a long-standing tradition that whatever that plant or animal produces in the beginning is given to Pastor. If the fruit tree produces a lot, we get big bags full! If the plant just produces one little bean, it is also given as an offering. I can't say that we don't get a kick out of this - it is pretty special to us. It is not something that has been taught by us to the people, but something they have adopted many many years ago.

The other day, Sis. Elvira brought over the first blackberry her bush had produced. She was very pleased to present it to Pastor!
Look at that luscious little morsel!
She wanted Pastor to eat it right then, probably to see if it was as good as it looked!

Sis. Francis' chicken also laid its first egg. It is the little brown one on the right.


The next morning, Dad had a hearty breakfast of eggs and toast. Yum!

Are there any of you out there that also have this tradition? Do you give your pastor the first fruits of your produce? Or is there anyone that has been on the receiving end of a tradition like this?
If you have, comment below! We'd love to hear your stories!

 ~Bethany~

2 comments:

Mary Frances said...

In the Philipines they give bags of rice in the offerings and stuff!!!
.
When we were kids we were like really poor and my dad wouldn't let my mom pay tithes with the money that he had made so my mom would pay tithes on our food stamps and that's when food stamps were still like paper so she would just slip them in the offering and our pastor did NOT mind at all using them at the grocery store...Which I think is technically illegal buuuuuut HEEEEEYYYY!!!
.

The Wakefields: Missionaries to Mexico said...

Mary - Rice!! Oooooh! So interesting! And that is funny about the food stamps. You do whatcha gotta do!! Haha :D

~Bethany~

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