At 40%, Kenya has one of the highest unemployment rates in the world. Among the youth, the situation is grimmer, with 3 of every 5 out of work. Little wonder that “in the violence that followed Kenya’s disputed elections of 2007, which left 1,133 people dead and 650,000 displaced from their homes, many of these atrocities were committed at the hands of youth for sums as low as $6.”

A man named James was therefore understandably elated when I secured him a job as a bread-van salesman. It didn’t matter that he had trained as a motor vehicle mechanic. Job opportunities in Kenya are so few and far between that  you do not sneer at what comes your way.

But James’ joy was short-lived. Within two weeks, he told me he was leaving his job. The pay wasn’t the issue. There was only one contention, over which he was not ready to even contemplate a compromise. The company had denied him his God-ordained right to “work for six days and keep the seventh day holy” (Exodus 20:8-9). The Sabbath was the Lord’s, blessed and hallowed. Not even the plight of his aging peasant parents would make him budge.

A year later, the Lord, ever faithful, shamed all of us doubting Thomases. Today, James works for Toyota, the world’s largest auto-manufacturer, with a pay-packet nearly ten times what the bakery was offering. Much more important, he remains true to his faith and so dedicated that every Sabbath, he literally camps at his house of worship, from dawn to dusk, cell phone switched off, “[beholding] the beauty of the Lord and [inquiring] in His temple” (Psalm 27:4).  —Submitted by Willie, Kenya