Half Loaf of Bread

By Andrew McChesney, Adventist Mission

Maya approached Valentina with a loaf of white bread after the worship service.

“Valya, please take this”, she said, holding out the loaf.

Valentina, 40, looked at the bread hungrily. She hadn’t eaten a crumb in more than six months. It was impossible to find bread on store shelves in Sukhumi, capital of Georgia’s breakaway region of Abkhazia. It was 1993, and a months-long armed conflict between Georgian and Abkhaz forces had resulted in a major food shortage.

“Take this, please”, Maya, 45, said again, still offering the bread. “This is from me to you”.

Valentina slowly shook her head.

“I can’t take this from you”, she said. “You need it just as badly as we do”.

Maya began to cry.

“Please, take this”, she said. “You walked so far to help us. This is a gift that I want to give you, but you are refusing to accept it”.

“OK”, Valentina said, finally relenting. “But let’s cut the bread in half. You take half, and I’ll take half”.

The women divided bread with a knife from the kitchen of the house church, where about 40 people gathered regularly to pray and read the Bible under the leadership of Valentina’s husband, Pavel Dmitrienko, a Seventh-day Adventist pastor.

Moments later, Valentina and Pavel left the house and started the 9-mile (15-kilometer) trek back to their home.

Valentina smiled as she thought about the bread in her purse. She looked forward to enjoying it with a simple soup of barley and water that evening.

“I will make soup, and we will eat it with real bread”, she said.

Pavel returned her happy smile. He also wanted to eat the bread.

Partway home, the couple met an elderly woman on a bridge. She was thin, and her clothing was filthy. She looked at Valentina.

“Daughter”, she said with a wavering voice, “would you happen to have a piece of bread?”

Valentina immediately removed the half loaf from her purse and presented it to the woman.

“Yes, I have, dear Grandmother”, she said. “Please, take this”.

The elderly woman wept as she accepted the bread.

“Thank you”, she said, tears streaking her dirty, wrinkled cheeks. “I haven’t eaten in three days. You’ve saved me from death”.

Valentina and Pavel continued on their way home, joyful smiles lighting their faces. They were happy that they had been able to sacrifice their precious bread.

“We gave the one thing that we wanted most of all to the grandmother, and saved her life”, Valentina, now 65 and pictured left, said in an interview in her home in Belgorod, Russia. “It was a real sacrifice—and it made us happier than ever before”.

Produced by the General Conference Office of Adventist Mission. Find more mission stories at adventistmission[dot]org

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Further Thought: Read Ellen G. White, “God With Us”, pages 19-26, The Desire of Ages ; “Saved to Serve”, pages 95-107, in The Ministry of Healing.

“God claims the whole earth as His vineyard. Though now in the hands of the usurper, it belongs to God.

By redemption no less than by creation it is His. For the world Christ’s sacrifice was made. ‘God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son’. John 3:16. It is through that one gift that every other is imparted to men. Daily the whole world receives blessing from God. Every drop of rain, every ray of light shed on our unthankful race, every leaf and flower and fruit, testifies to God’s long forbearance and His great love”. – Ellen G. White, Christ’s Object Lessons, pages 301, 302.

“‘In Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, bond nor free. All are brought nigh by His precious blood’. (Gal. 3:28; Eph. 2:13).

Whatever the difference in religious belief, a call from suffering humanity must be heard and answered …

All around us are poor, tried souls that need sympathizing words and helpful deeds. There are widows who need sympathy and assistance. There are orphans whom Christ has bidden His followers receive as a trust from God. Too often these are passed by with neglect. They may be ragged, uncouth, and seemingly in every way unattractive; yet they are God’s property. They have been bought with a price, and they are as precious in His sight as we are. They are members of God’s great household, and Christians as His stewards are responsible for them”. – Ellen G. White, Christ’s Object Lessons, pages 386, 387.

Discussion Questions:

In seeking to do good works and help others, how can we resist the temptation to think that this somehow makes us better and gains us merit that God should recognize? Is your church a community in which there is “no difference”, but all are one in Christ? How do we find the right balance in doing good for those in need, if for no other reason than that they are in need and we can help them, while at the same time reaching out to them with the truths of the gospel? How can we learn to do both, and why is it always better to do both?

Summary: 

The love of God as expressed in the plan of salvation and enacted in the life and sacrifice of Jesus offers us forgiveness, life, and hope. As recipients of this grace, we seek to share this with others, not to earn salvation, but because it is what we have been created and re-created to do. As such, the gospel transforms relationships and moves us to serve, particularly those most in need.

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