It\u2019s a miracle.<\/em><\/p>\n The phrase is pregnant with Christian portent. Yes, other religions have their own sets of miracles, but Christianity seems to put a special emphasis on them. Jesus performed plenty of miracles, from killing fig trees to raising the dead, each one used as one more proof of His divinity. And ever since then, miracles have always been an important part of the Christian story\u2014and Christian stories.<\/p>\n Christian movies are enamored with the miraculous. Just this year, we\u2019ve seen nifty tricks from The Young Messiah<\/em> to the Resurrection in Risen<\/em> to the crazy-but-true healing that takes place in the aptly named Miracles From Heaven<\/em>.<\/p>\n But for most Christians, faith isn\u2019t predicated on show-stopping twists of the laws of nature. Most of us never see a miracle like this, as much as we might wish to. We want to see parting seas or pillars of fire. Instead we get a still, small voice\u2014one so quiet that we sometimes wonder whether we heard it at all.<\/p>\n Maybe that\u2019s one of the reasons why I like Disney\u2019s Queen of Katwe<\/em> so much.<\/p>\n Phiona Mutesi (played by Madina Nalwanga) is no queen: She\u2019s a pawn. The girl lives in one of the poorest regions of Uganda, scraping a life together by selling corn on Katwe\u2019s crowded, chaotic streets. She has no father. Her mother (Lupita Nyong\u2019o) has no money to send Phiona to school. Every night, they gather to give thanks for what they have, but they have so very little. If anyone could use a miracle, she could. She and millions of other children who live in much the same way.<\/p>\n \u201cDo you think God has forgotten us?\u201d Phiona asks her older sister, Night.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t think God cares about us one way or another,\u201d Night says.<\/p>\n But God has not forgotten.<\/p>\n But in the midst of this poverty, there\u2019s a ministry\u2014Agape Sanctuary Ministry, it\u2019s called. I don\u2019t know much about the actual ministry, but I imagine it\u2019s funded through the small donations of thousands of supporters\u2014people who give in the hopes that God might somehow work a little miracle through their donations of a dollar or two.<\/p>\n Robert Katende (David Eyelowo) is part of that ministry, at least for now. He really wants to be an engineer: That\u2019s what his degree is in, what he\u2019s dreamed of for much of his life. But engineering jobs are scarce right now, so Robert takes a job as a sports outreach director for Agape. It seems like it\u2019s supposed to minister to Uganda\u2019s poor kids through soccer. But while Robert\u2019s a fine soccer player, he as a broader definition of the word \u201csports.\u201d He creates a chess club. Soon some of Katwe\u2019s poorest children are stumbling through its doors to get a free meal and a few lessons in this strange new game. Phiona and her brother are two of them.<\/p>\n And so begins a little miracle. A whisper of one.<\/p>\n There are no bright lights flashing in the heavens, no angels shouting for joy: Just a Christian chess coach working through a Christian organization helping a child\u2014in this case a Christian child who wonders whether God has forgotten her. It\u2019s the same little miracle that\u2019s replicated in countless ways across the globe every day. Children are fed through the money of strangers. They\u2019re educated thanks to dedicated volunteers. The homeless are housed. The sick are cared for.<\/p>\n Statistically, the United States is an exceptionally generous country. Americans donated about $373 billion to charity in 2015. Religious Americans tend to give more: The more religious they are, the more they\u2019re likely to give. They\u2019re more likely to donate their time, too, making some of these little miracles possible.<\/p>\n And sometimes, those little miracles can turn into something bigger.<\/p>\n Phiona, like most of the kids in Robert\u2019s club, enjoys chess. She\u2019s also really, really good at it. Soon she and her Katwe teammates are taking on kids who came from more affluent backgrounds and had been playing the game for years. They began beating these players, giving them a sense of pride and accomplishment. Soon, Phiona\u2014a chess prodigy, turns out\u2014eyes even higher quarry. This pawn becomes a chess queen, both in the movie and the real-life story it\u2019s based on.<\/p>\n And her story keeps going even after the credits roll.<\/p>\n The real Phiona Mutesi still plays chess, of course. But she has even bigger ambitions. \u201cI want to be a physician as when I was in the slum, I used to see kids suffering,\u201d Phiona told the BBC in 2014. \u201cIt inspired me to become a doctor and help.\u201d<\/p>\n Phiona was not touched by an angel to suddenly become a world-class chess master. She did not wake up one day with superhuman skill, like a chess-playing Spider-man. Yes, she was born with the ability\u2014a gift from God. But she worked to grow and hone that ability. The little miracle doesn\u2019t lie in her achievements, but that she had the chance to achieve\u2014thanks to Robert, a Christian ministry and perhaps the kind, anonymous donations of strangers.<\/p>\n Phiona\u2019s story is inspiring in itself. But it\u2019s also inspiring in that, if we look closely enough, we see how we, too, can be a part of God\u2019s plan throughout the world. How we can be a piece of small, daily miracles that happen all the time.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It\u2019s a miracle. The phrase is pregnant with Christian portent. Yes, other religions have their own sets of miracles, but Christianity seems to put a special emphasis on them. Jesus performed plenty of miracles, from killing fig trees to raising the dead, each one used as one more proof of His divinity. And ever since […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2036,"featured_media":1334,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[157,73,26,355,457],"class_list":["post-1333","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-movies","tag-charity","tag-disney","tag-faith","tag-miracles","tag-queen-of-katwe"],"yoast_head":"\n