I am not a rapper. Actually, I am about as “not a rapper” as they come. I don’t have rhythm, I don’t like bling, I wear flannel shirts and hiking boots as leisure wear… you get the idea. Nevertheless, out of the vestiges of my youth, I was reminded of the lyrics of an old DC Talk song this morning:
“Hey, I think it’s time ya learned
I don’t care what they say
I don’t care what ya heard
The word luv, luv is a verb”
This morning, as I was drinking my coffee, Rochelle passed her phone to me and said, “Hey, look what Dave just posted.”
Dave is the Pastor of our sending church (and yes, we just call him “Dave”), and though his post may seem insignificant to most people, it was very special to us.
We’ve been feeling pretty exhausted lately, both physically and emotionally, to the point that we recently decided to move our Home Assignment forward a month. Though this was exciting news for our parents back home, it also added a bit of work to their already busy lives, as they have been working at some minor renovations to my Grandma’s old house to make it livable for our family of five when we arrive back in the States.
They’ve been doing the work themselves, little by little while we’ve been gone, shooting to be done by the end of July. They have been doing an awesome job, but with our change in plans, and home-improvement being the monster that it is, things have been looking like they might be a little tight. Man-power is down, our budget is down, and the project is at that “worse before it gets better” stage, with some walls not necessarily existing, and some plumbing and wiring not quite…well…working.
In my last talk with my mom, I had told her not to sweat the details: “I’m sure whatever level you are able to get it to before we arrive will be much nicer than what we are currently living in, so don’t stress about it. I can try to do some work when we get home too.”*
As far as I was concerned, this was a small family problem that we would handle as a family. But, as I was reminded of this morning, with Dave’s post, our “family” extends beyond our blood relatives. That’s the awesome thing about being sent out from a small, country church: our church and our family are interwoven. As others have caught wind of what was going on, they’ve made it their business to come alongside my folks and lend a hand.
I’ll be honest, it’s easy to feel forgotten when you are living 8,000 miles from home, in a jungle swamp, but I’ll tell you what, that simple act of kindness, whether they finish the work or not, was an awesome reminder to us that we are we are not alone, and we are actively loved.
So, all that to say, thank you Cornerstone! We’re feelin’ the love!
* This is about the equivalent of Peewee Herman offering his services to NASA, but I think she appreciated the sentiment.
