Wednesday night we joined friends for a work night moving Pastor Josh and Kayla Durr's belongings to the parsonage which is soon to receive final inspection.
Our van almost got stuck in all the snow, but the moving truck got out without too much problem.
Hannah with an icicle.
While waiting on supper and the moving truck, Jonathan put together a rail to guard the door that doesn't have a deck outside it yet, so the house can pass inspection.
Buzz built front door steps.
Everyone helped unload belongings into the new parsonage.
Jonathan measuring the rail.
The next night, Sam texted me, asking if it was okay to bring two extra people to supper.
You never know what will happen when you text back, “No problem, Sam. They’re welcome.”
And those two extra people arrive, one nicknamed Alabama because he’s from Alabama, and his friend from Kentucky. One with an Afro and one with a pony tail. One who has lived homeless before, and one who is a Mormon. One who works for Jonathan (Alabama), and the other his friend "Kentucky," whom he lives with. They were wanting to borrow our trailer, but since it was still loaded, they came all the way home with Sam to help him unload it, and Sam (I am so glad he felt free) asked if the guys could have supper with us.
We welcomed them inside and showed them where to wash their hands and where to pull up a chair to the table or where to sit on a bench with the rest of the boys. And Jonathan called on Danny to pray for the food, and owners of both Afro and Ponytal said, “Amen,” along with others of us.
The owner of the Afro says, “I haven’t sat down to dinner like this in a minute!” (which must mean “in ages” in Kentucky) We pass around mashed potatoes still in the pan, corn in a bowl, and Salisbury steaks, scooping the gravy out for on the potatoes. There is bread and butter and jam, and no dessert. But who needs dessert when all the food is home-cooked, and there is love around the table?
Kentucky and Alabama keep thinking and talking about their grandmas, because our dinner and our home and our woodstove and iron skillets remind them of Grandma.
“Everything tastes so fresh!” Kentucky with the Afro notices. We explain that we cook from scratch, and even the corn was home frozen.
Just like their grandmas. Their grandmas used to put up corn like that.
After supper, the children bring in puppies to pet as usual, and we pull out a Bible. Gingerly Jonathan opens it and I suggest just a Psalm instead of Acts where we’ve been reading. Jonathan picks a random Psalm, 41, and starts reading. “Blessed are they who consider the poor; the Lord will deliver him in time of trouble. The Lord will preserve him and keep him alive, and he will be blessed in the earth…The Lord will strengthen him on his bed of illness; You will sustain him on his sickbed.”
"Oh, boy, they probably think this Psalm is weird," I thought, getting more nervous by the minute.
Jonathan kept reading to the end, “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, from everlasting to everlasting. Amen and Amen.”
I giggled nervously as Jonathan closed the Bible. Jonathan was nervous, too. Wives can tell. Husbands don’t usually giggle, but they have little funny sounds that they do, too. That Psalm sure sounded religious, but they probably thought it was weird, I worried.
Kentucky, the Afro, gave a huge blink.
“Cool!” he exclaimed. Pause. “You know, that is really interesting, because I was just helping the poor recently.” And he started into one of the best Bible commentary applications I’ve ever heard. Instead of us trying to comment on the Bible, Kentucky was commenting on the Bible. He told us how he had discovered a man recently who was about to be evicted from his home, and how he had taken the man to a Chinese restaurant and gotten him plenty of food to last a bit. Then shortly after doing that, Kentucky was paying for gas at a convenience store when he noticed the clerk trying to shoo a homeless man out of the store. Kentucky spoke to the homeless man, noticing that his gloves were in bad shape. Kentucky bought the man gloves, hand warmers, and a tobaggon (Kentucky colloquial for sock hat).
“The man told me, ‘God will bless you,’” Kentucky told us. “I was like, I don’t know. We’ll see.”
Well,” I said, “You got a good dinner tonight, something you haven’t had in ages!”
He had to agree. Later he asked Jonathan, “What was that? Book of Mormon?”
“No,” Jonathan explains, “just a Bible.”
Kentucky told him that once he was given a Bible, but it was so small he could hardly read it. When he asked for bigger print, the guy gave him a whole shelf full of different Bibles. But there were so many, he had no idea how to get started.
“We just try to live and do what the Bible says,” Jonathan shared.
Both Alabama and Kentucky thanked us warmly for the meal, and Alabama invited us that when he gets his apartment ready, he wants to have us for a meal in return for tonight.
“I can bring something!” I assured him. “We would be happy to come!”
While the young men were outside in the cold unloading the lumber from the trailer, Jonathan confessed to me that he hadn’t really wanted to let those guys come for supper. He just didn’t feel like it tonight. I hadn’t felt like it either. It had interrupted my project I was in the middle of. Neither of us knew how to reach out to two young men like that--Afro andPonytail, Kentucky and Alabama, pure heathen and Mormon. But people are more important than projects. And whether we knew how or not, we simply opened up our home and let them sit with us at our supper table.
And God did the rest.
Yes, you never know what will happen when your son brings two extras home for supper.
You never know what will happen when you text back, “No problem, Sam. They’re welcome.”
And those two extra people arrive, one nicknamed Alabama because he’s from Alabama, and his friend from Kentucky. One with an Afro and one with a pony tail. One who has lived homeless before, and one who is a Mormon. One who works for Jonathan (Alabama), and the other his friend "Kentucky," whom he lives with. They were wanting to borrow our trailer, but since it was still loaded, they came all the way home with Sam to help him unload it, and Sam (I am so glad he felt free) asked if the guys could have supper with us.
We welcomed them inside and showed them where to wash their hands and where to pull up a chair to the table or where to sit on a bench with the rest of the boys. And Jonathan called on Danny to pray for the food, and owners of both Afro and Ponytal said, “Amen,” along with others of us.
The owner of the Afro says, “I haven’t sat down to dinner like this in a minute!” (which must mean “in ages” in Kentucky) We pass around mashed potatoes still in the pan, corn in a bowl, and Salisbury steaks, scooping the gravy out for on the potatoes. There is bread and butter and jam, and no dessert. But who needs dessert when all the food is home-cooked, and there is love around the table?
Kentucky and Alabama keep thinking and talking about their grandmas, because our dinner and our home and our woodstove and iron skillets remind them of Grandma.
“Everything tastes so fresh!” Kentucky with the Afro notices. We explain that we cook from scratch, and even the corn was home frozen.
Just like their grandmas. Their grandmas used to put up corn like that.
After supper, the children bring in puppies to pet as usual, and we pull out a Bible. Gingerly Jonathan opens it and I suggest just a Psalm instead of Acts where we’ve been reading. Jonathan picks a random Psalm, 41, and starts reading. “Blessed are they who consider the poor; the Lord will deliver him in time of trouble. The Lord will preserve him and keep him alive, and he will be blessed in the earth…The Lord will strengthen him on his bed of illness; You will sustain him on his sickbed.”
"Oh, boy, they probably think this Psalm is weird," I thought, getting more nervous by the minute.
Jonathan kept reading to the end, “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, from everlasting to everlasting. Amen and Amen.”
I giggled nervously as Jonathan closed the Bible. Jonathan was nervous, too. Wives can tell. Husbands don’t usually giggle, but they have little funny sounds that they do, too. That Psalm sure sounded religious, but they probably thought it was weird, I worried.
Kentucky, the Afro, gave a huge blink.
“Cool!” he exclaimed. Pause. “You know, that is really interesting, because I was just helping the poor recently.” And he started into one of the best Bible commentary applications I’ve ever heard. Instead of us trying to comment on the Bible, Kentucky was commenting on the Bible. He told us how he had discovered a man recently who was about to be evicted from his home, and how he had taken the man to a Chinese restaurant and gotten him plenty of food to last a bit. Then shortly after doing that, Kentucky was paying for gas at a convenience store when he noticed the clerk trying to shoo a homeless man out of the store. Kentucky spoke to the homeless man, noticing that his gloves were in bad shape. Kentucky bought the man gloves, hand warmers, and a tobaggon (Kentucky colloquial for sock hat).
“The man told me, ‘God will bless you,’” Kentucky told us. “I was like, I don’t know. We’ll see.”
Well,” I said, “You got a good dinner tonight, something you haven’t had in ages!”
He had to agree. Later he asked Jonathan, “What was that? Book of Mormon?”
“No,” Jonathan explains, “just a Bible.”
Kentucky told him that once he was given a Bible, but it was so small he could hardly read it. When he asked for bigger print, the guy gave him a whole shelf full of different Bibles. But there were so many, he had no idea how to get started.
“We just try to live and do what the Bible says,” Jonathan shared.
Both Alabama and Kentucky thanked us warmly for the meal, and Alabama invited us that when he gets his apartment ready, he wants to have us for a meal in return for tonight.
“I can bring something!” I assured him. “We would be happy to come!”
While the young men were outside in the cold unloading the lumber from the trailer, Jonathan confessed to me that he hadn’t really wanted to let those guys come for supper. He just didn’t feel like it tonight. I hadn’t felt like it either. It had interrupted my project I was in the middle of. Neither of us knew how to reach out to two young men like that--Afro andPonytail, Kentucky and Alabama, pure heathen and Mormon. But people are more important than projects. And whether we knew how or not, we simply opened up our home and let them sit with us at our supper table.
And God did the rest.
Yes, you never know what will happen when your son brings two extras home for supper.
Valentines Day morning, we had omelettes and...
heart-shaped berry scones.
A picture Danny copied and drew and then whittled the frame for a cousin's birthday.
On Valentines evening, I thought it was very special when Jonathan came home bringing two bags of Valentines Day treats from "Alabama," whom Sam was spending the evening helping.
One bag was for Sam and one for Jonathan--beef jerky, peanut butter cups and other treats, and Alabama had given treat bags to the other work guys on his crew that day as well.
I just thought how sweet the Lord is to bring other things into Sam's life during hard times like Valentines Day when he is no longer in a relationship.
The Lord cares about each detail in our lives.
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