Today (Aug. 25) has been a really awesome day. To tell you the story, I have to back up a
bit…
Last May, we decided to help take the place of a lady who
was moving off island. Cindy and her
family have been taking a bunch of Chuukese kids to church for years. One of them happens to live right near our
church. So we agreed to pick him up
after we got back from our visit to the States.
However, when we got back, I forgot for a while. Then I couldn’t find the paper with his
number on it. I emailed Cindy, and she
said she could give me directions to his house, but she didn’t have his
number.
So last Sabbath, we showed up at his house unannounced, to
pick up a kid we’ve never met. He wasn’t
home, but we got his number and said we’d be back the next week.
This week, we called ahead and successfully picked him up –
a 12-year-old boy, and also his cousin, who was 5 but looked much older. The older boy speaks English well; the
younger one needed some translation.
We were really impressed with their behavior! They were great kids, very easy to have
around. Never once did I have to tell
them to be quiet in church. The simple
requests I made, they obeyed quickly.
It was fun to see the delight on their faces with little
things. The younger boy was excited
about closing my van’s automatic door.
:)
Backing up again:
We were trying to have a friend over for dinner one night,
but it didn’t work out. However, she
invited us to a short hike for Sabbath afternoon, when a guy from the clinic
would be teaching about the plants we’d see.
Usually, we go home after church or potluck and get our kids
to nap as quickly as we can. But this
time, we decided to be adventuresome and go for it.
That worked out perfectly, because, as we were driving up to
the Chuukese boys’ home, I remembered that Cindy said she used to take them all
hiking every week! We asked if they
wanted to go hiking this week, and they quickly said yes.
The hike was fun, and our kids did pretty well! We all enjoyed it.
One other major event of the day –
We were supposed to meet for the hike at 2:30 at a different
church. When I called to say we’d be
late, our friend told me they were actually meeting at the beach for a baptism,
and then going on the hike.
When we showed up, they were just starting, and we were
thrilled to see that it was our friend Joe!
:D :D We had just heard recently
that he had decided to get baptized, but we didn’t know when that would
be! So we were so excited that we got to
be there for it! (Some of you may
remember reading about Joe in one of our earlier blogs, not quite a year
ago.)
How can it be a coincidence that the first week we pick up
these boys is the first week we go on a hike after church? And that the meeting place was changed to be
at the baptism of our friend, even though we didn’t know it was happening? No way.
Oh, and the sermon the pastor preached today at this church was one that
I’d heard referenced before, and wished I could have heard!
I am so thankful.
