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The Little Red Purse

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Several years ago, on a Sunday morning in Philadelphia, a father and his 8-year-old daughter were walking to Sunday School. But when they arrived, they discovered the door to the church building was shut with a notice that read, “Room for no more.”

Sadly, the father and little daughter turned around and walked home. On the way they met the preacher, who seeing the little girl crying, picked her up in his arms and carried her into the church building saying, “Someday, Hettie, we will have a church big enough for all the boys and girls, and no one will be turned away.”

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From the above comes a wonderful story. Hettie went home and asked her parents for things to do to earn money. She worked for neighbors and saved what she earned. But Hettie became ill and had to go to the hospital. She never went home again.

Hattie had a little in which she saved her money for the church. On the day of her funeral, the preacher asked her mother for that little red purse in which she had saved her money for the church. In it were her savings- 57 cents.

When people heard this story, money came from all over the city as a result of what she had done.

I’m told that in the foyer of the New Temple Church in Philadelphia there us a plaque in honor of Hettie. But that was just the beginning, for behind the church is Temple University, and down the street id Temple Medical Center. In both buildings there are plaques in memory of this little girl.

Unbelievable but true, this little girl, by her self, furnished the motivation a church, a university, a medical center.

Make no mistake about it, we need to pray for the little children in developing nations who do not have a shelter where they can worship God. One of the very best things that Churches throughout this area have been able to do in recent years is the building of meeting houses in India. The Germany congregation where I attend has provided money for two. Others have done the same.