My Story

Punchinello

(Dots vs Stars) story by Max Lucado

Dear family and friends,

It’s already march!!! This year seems to be going really fast, but it has been a blessed year so far. This month has been a busy month yet fruitful in many ways. The academic year has come to an end so it’s been a month making payment of school fee and transportation payments to the schools. The procedure we follow to issue educational fee is, the mothers are required to pay the amount on their own and bring the bill to us to get that amount reimbursed. We follow this method so that the mothers will be responsible and will take efforts to do their best from their side.I’ve completed visiting all the families in Fsp, it was really fun and I was able to learn a lot from these experiences.

We had several activities in Fsp and one of them was small group sessions with a few of the collage girls. It was a time of fellowship, teaching, pouring into the lives of these girls. The topic we discussed was ‘our identity in Christ’. It was powerful to see God move throughout the session. These girls have never had sessions like these and have never had people to invest in their lives. We are created in the very image of god and we are his daughters, seeing these girls eagerly listening to what we have to say and with open hearts expecting God to move was really encouraging for me to see and experience in my life.

God has used the story of Punchinello by Max Lucado to teach me so many new lessons this season. I was confused and questions regarding my very existence started popping up . I was leading a life of perfection, I wanted to be perfect in everything I did, this was a strong hold I dealt with.

In a village, there live many different Wemmicks. The Wemmicks walk around all day and give each other either a gold star or a gray dot sticker. A Wemmick named Punchinello always tries his best to receive gold stars from the other Wemmicks but only receives gray dots for not doing well enough. One day he meets a Wemmick named Lucia who doesn't have any gold stars or gray dots because they don't stick to her. Punchinello doesn't want any stickers on him either so Lucia tells him to visit their maker, Eli. Eli explains to Punchinello that if he is not bothered by what the other Wemmicks think then the star and dots will not stick to him either.

 I thought if people saw this side of me they would give me stars just like Punchinello. I did not want anyone to see my weakness and did not want black dots from anyone. I thought what people thought of me was more important, my identity was in what others thought about me. This story reminds and teaches me that God does not love me for what I do and how perfect I do it . He loves me for who I am. I don’t have to do anything to gain it. I wanted success in everything I did. And if people told me certain things that hurt me I would consider it as a black dot on me.

I was in the shoes of Punchinello, I think I went through everything he had faced. One thing that drew my attention and was powerful in this story was this sentence that Eli tells Punchinello “the stickers stick only if you want them to stick.”

It is up to me to let the thoughts of others define who I was, it's totally up to me.              

Prayer Points

·      Please pray that fsp will grow and we will be able to support many more children this year.

·      Please pray that all the workshops and programmes that we planned for  this year will happen successfully and be effective in the lives of people.

·      Please pray that I would be used as an instrument in the lives of the children and women I work with.

·      Please pray for my future.

·      Please pray for my MSW studies.

·      Please pray that I will become bold and grow confident in myself.

·      Please pray that we get local sponsors to support us in our ministry.