Have you given thanks for mail service lately? I haven’t until now.

I’ve been corresponding with a young pastor in Cameroon to whom I wanted to send some books. When I tried to buy a Kindle book for him, a little notice popped up saying I could only give an e-book to someone in the U.S. So I asked for his mailing address. He sent me his email address. I asked again, explaining that I couldn’t send an e-book, but I was willing to mail him a paper book if he would please provide his address. Again, he sent his email address.

Thinking we had a communication problem since he is a native French speaker, I carefully explained that I was looking for a mailing address and gave him mine as an example. Then I said, “If I wanted to mail something to you, how would I address it?” Then he wrote back: 

It’s now okay for now. I don’t have any box but when I will have some money I will go and open it. Thank you for all the time you took to explain may God bless you.

He doesn’t have a post office box and can’t afford to open one!

We complain about the junk mail we get delivered to our homes for free! And if we wanted to rent a post office box, we could do so for a nominal fee that we wouldn’t think twice about. 

For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs, flowing out in the valleys and hills, a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey, a land in which you will eat bread without scarcity, in which you will lack nothing, a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills you can dig copper. And you shall eat and be full, and you shall bless the Lord your God for the good land he has given you. (Deuteronomy 8:7 – 10, ESV)

It is good to give thanks to the Lord, to sing praises to your name, O Most High; to declare your steadfast love in the morning, and your faithfulness by night… (Psalm 92.1, 2, ESV)