Sitting down heavily on the steps and reaching to tie my shoes, I sighed. Tim and I were getting ready to leave the house and head for the “home by the orchard.” I knew some very isolated and lonely people were expecting us. Problem was, I felt like I had nothing in me to give them. We had already prayed for God’s strength and wisdom.We had asked to be sensitive to His leading. But I hadn’t slept well and a dull pain was throbbing in my right temple. Plus, I kept forgetting things. If just the task of gathering together sermon CDs, purse, Bible and water bottle was this hard, how was I going to be able to minister to anybody? Only past grace got me out the door.
Two hours later, it was obvious that God wasn’t troubled by my weakness. And the morning wasn’t over yet! After opening God’s word to some of our regulars, when we had only about 15-20 minutes left, we went looking for a barely disabled woman we usually visit. We finally found her out in the garden where a group of 7-8 residents were clustered on benches or in wheelchairs, greedily soaking up the rays of an October sun.
Our friend, though, was preoccupied with a stray puppy the residents had adopted. Now what? Tim greeted Mihai, a new gentleman, while I said “hi” to some ladies. Soon, Tim called me to translate. It seems Mihai was trying to explain to him that he also had a Bible, a gift from his son, an Adventist. That was encouraging! I wondered where the conversation would lead.
But further down the bench, Teddy, a cheerful hulk of a child-man, transferred his attention from the puppy to us. He’d spotted our Bibles too! As I sat down on the bench next to him, he immediately pounced on mine—and by the way he was flipping through the pages it looked like it would have a short life! What to do? He looked pretty determined to keep it, and Teddy was big! But this is where God’s grace poured out; because I did something then that I would never have done in front of such a big group if I had stopped to think about it: I asked Teddy, “Want to hear a story from the Bible?! Yeah? Then give me my Bible back and I’ll tell you one!” Continue Reading »