The Maasai tribe in Africa loves cows.

They often wander from place to place and the cows come with them. Life in the desert can be hard, so when an older person or a baby dies, families have to move on quickly.

But when his cow dies, a Maasai man will mourn terribly. He knows that cows are very valuable and help him take care of his family. He loves his cows.

So, it came as a big surprise to Adventist leaders to hear that a wealthy Maasai man had decided to give 100 of his precious cows as a tithe to God.

The man, Abraham, became an Adventist after meeting a Global Mission pioneer in northern Tanzania and felt impressed to give one tenth of his cattle as tithe. Abraham called the local pastor to collect the cows. “I don’t want to keep what belongs to God,” he said. Abraham took the stunned pastor to his field and began to count out his tithe.

“One, two, three, four, five,” Abraham counted the cows in his herd. “Six, seven, eight, nine, ten.”

When he reached the tenth cow, he told a helper to put a tag on its ear so the cow would be set aside for tithe.

“That one is for the Lord,” he said.

He counted out 100 cows for tithe.

Abraham’s Maasai neighbors, who were not Adventist, thought he had gone mad.

“Why would you give away your cows?” someone said.

“If you can give 100 cows as tithe, why don’t you also count your children and give the tenth child as tithe?” said another.

“I know a person in the Bible who didn’t even have 10 children,” he said. “He only had one, and he was more than willing to return that child to God. His name was Abraham, too.”

After Abraham returned the tithe of 100 cows to God, something strange happened to his cattle. His cows started giving birth to twins. Cows usually give birth to just one calf at a time, but all of Abraham’s cows began to give birth to twins. The neighbors were shocked. Abraham had given away 100 cows, and now he had more cows than ever before.

“Call your pastor,” one neighbor said. “I also want to give a tithe.”

“We want our cows to have twins too,” said another.

Abraham marveled at how God was blessing him and decided that he didn’t want to return just one tithe. He wanted to give two tithes. He called the Adventist pastor again.

“When I gave the 100 cows as tithe nine months ago, I wanted to see what would happen,” Abraham said. “I have seen so many blessings. Instead of having one calf, my cows started having twins.”

Abraham took the pastor to his field and counted out double tithes — two cows out of every ten.

The pastor was amazed by how God had blessed Abraham’s faithfulness.

“You are never losing when you return to God,” the pastor said. “The Lord is faithful. He will even multiply what little you have.”