I visited a church recently and during their teaching session on the theme “Understanding Times and Seasons” a man named Elder Enoch, recounted a beautiful story relevant to today’s topic. There was a young man from his church whom he had supported financially through school. He knew him as a hardworking usher, quiet and committed, someone who often came to church alone.
The young man had spoken about his elderly parents in the village, and perhaps that was part of why Elder Enoch felt compelled to help him. For a while, there was a relationship built around support: one person had a need, and the other had something he could give.
Then the young man graduated, and he disappeared. Elder Enoch tried to reach him. Calls and efforts to find him went nowhere, and eventually he stopped trying. Five years passed. Then, unexpectedly, the young man appeared at his house, not with another request, but with a car as a gift.
He apologised for the years of silence and explained that after graduation, a friend had connected him to a job opportunity that eventually took him to Europe. He had been building a life, and somehow, the young man Elder Enoch once helped had become a man capable of standing on his own feet.
I found myself wondering what Elder Enoch must have felt in those five years. Perhaps there was disappointment. Perhaps there were unanswered questions: Did I do something wrong? Did he forget me? Was the relationship only useful while he needed something? Those are very human questions.
When we have invested in someone, silence can feel personal. But listening to the story, I sensed something deeper. I don’t think Elder Enoch was ultimately disappointed that the young man no longer needed him. He was concerned because he did not know what had happened to him. He would probably have preferred a goodbye, an update, even a simple message saying, “I am doing well.” It was the absence of communication that was painful; not the absence of dependence.
The young man’s story reminds me that people do not always leave because they are ungrateful. Sometimes life moves faster than relationships can keep up. Opportunities relocate us. New environments consume our attention. Shame can make us avoid the people who knew us when we were struggling and pride can make us reluctant to return.
Sometimes, after finally escaping a difficult season, we become so occupied with survival and rebuilding that we fail to look back. None of these excuses the silence, but they help me resist the easy conclusion that every disappearance is betrayal.
There is also a larger social lesson here. In communities where formal systems do not always provide enough support, individuals often become one another’s safety nets. These acts collectively alter the trajectory of a person’s life. Goodwill becomes a kind of social infrastructure, the invisible network through which people survive, recover, and sometimes rise.
What moved me most about the story was the ending. Elder Enoch did not tell it as though the young man had failed because he stopped needing him. If anything, the car became symbolic of something much greater: the young man had moved from receiving support to having something of his own to give.
The person who once needed help had become capable of expressing gratitude through generosity. There was a beautiful reversal in that. Goodwill had come full circle not because the beneficiary remained dependent, but because he had become stronger.
Perhaps that is one of the purest tests of our goodwill: can I genuinely celebrate the day my help becomes unnecessary? Can I give without keeping score, support without controlling, open a door without demanding that someone remain near me, and celebrate another person’s independence even when it means my role in their story has ended?
I am learning that generosity should not create smaller people around me. It should create stronger people. If I can help someone learn, let me teach. If I can connect someone to an opportunity, let me open the door. If I can provide temporary relief, let me give without turning their hardship into a permanent identity. And when they eventually stand without me, I should not feel replaced. I should feel grateful that I was able to contribute to their journey.
Ready to turn goodwill into action?
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