More Than A Piggy Bank

May 2002

I don't know that Grandma had anything profound in mind when she gave me the piggybank. I was plus or minus ten years old. It was just a cute gift for her name-sake grandchild—and maybe a subconscious reminder of financial responsibility from this survivor of the Great Depression. On the other hand, maybe Grandma did have something deeper in mind. Boldly painted on the side of the piggy-bank is "For My Trip to Europe." Did Grandma pay special attention to those words, or was she just attracted to the cute pig? A mere four inches long, realistically it couldn't hold much money for such a trip.

Thinking about it, one could say that the words were either a cruel joke or dream-makers. When Grandma gave me the piggybank, polio had already damaged my body from ever again being able to walk normally, let alone traipse around the world. "For My Trip to Europe"? Not possible, many would have said. I doubt that Grandma had any idea that her cute little gift sparked a dream in me. A challenge. A secret I kept to myself, knowing how it would be seen by others—"impossible."

Every summer when Grandma came to visit, she brought me and my siblings each a crisp two-dollar bill. Not two ones, but the more rare two-dollar bill. We five children of a farm couple were comfortable and happy, but spare cash was rare. Grandma's two-dollar bills were a high event! Each summer I carefully folded mine and stuffed it through the slot on my piggybank's back. Once in awhile I acquired a coin or two to put in, too. For my trip to Europe.

As big as that dream seemed to be, an even bigger one was growing in my heart. In that soft, sure way that only He has, God was beginning to form in me what some would term a "calling." I began to feel more and more clearly that he wanted me to be a missionary some day. Could it be? By the time I was thirteen, I knew for sure that was God's plan. A big dream for a young girl who wore braces and used crutches. But why stop with just a trip to Europe? Why just one "impossible" dream?

I did get my trip to Europe a few years after Grandma died. I was in college and no longer needed either braces or crutches. One year the college offered a January Term course of spending the month in Spain and Portugal. The cost was the exact amount of extra money I had from my scholarships and grants that year. A chunk of my spending money came from … you guessed it ... my piggybank. Not wanting to break it, I turned it upside down, and with a knife blade, great care and patience, I managed to extract all those two-dollar bills and the few coins. Thanks for the money, Grandma. And for the dream. Thank you, Lord, for making a way for it to happen.

God also gave me His bigger dream for me. I spent seventeen wonderful years as a missionary in a remote, mountainous, primitive area of Irian Jaya (West Papua), Indonesia before post-polio syndrome brought me back to America.

So is that the end of the dreams? No. Grandma’s gift of the piggybank began to teach me what God has reinforced in my life over and over. My body has limitations– now even more than before. Not only am I back in braces and once again need crutches, but also I’m weaker than I was when I lived out those former dreams. But limitations and weakness are no barrier to God. In His hands they are just the dark backdrop that shows more brilliantly the light of what He can do. He has planted some new dreams in my heart. They seem to be a stretch, given my body. I look forward to seeing how God will pull these off!