The New Years Day Lily--and Unexpected Guests

Our New Years Eve and New Years Day were both good days for Jonathan and me. I counted it a special gift when the third and last beautiful white lily in the bouquet Jonathan had bought me the week before bloomed right on New Years Day, surprising me!

This discovery followed our wonderful New Year's Eve where we had gathered with other church people. As we were starting to make a recipe for three homemade pizzas, at least seven Lakota people showed up unexpectedly. Six of them were strangers to even the pastor and his wife who have ministered here for over three decades, but we quickly welcomed them warmly. 

"We better mix another batch of dough for more pizzas!" Sally and I whispered to each other, and we proceeded to do so as fast as we could. One lady said her name was Marina (not her real name) and the man with her was Jonathan, "same as my husband!" I told her.  Her daughter, who was there as well with her boyfriend, was expecting a baby. Others appeared shortly out of nowhere.

We never know who will come to our little Lakota chapel. Some Sundays it's just the regulars, but often one or more visitors will show up, usually ones the pastor and his wife know. This time was different. a Lakota lady from our church, we found out later, had told another lady, who had told this group of people that our church was having something going on this New Years Eve. 

"Where do you live?" I asked Marina, "in town here?"

She hesitated. "I'm homeless," she admitted. "I live sometimes with this lady, and sometimes here or there, and this guy has a truck in his back yard where I stay sometimes. Do you need help?"

Feeling that giving her a job would give her a sense of value, I assured her that it would be a big help if she would like to add toppings to the dough I was pressing to the edges of the pizza pans with my fingers. I had forgotten a rolling pin. Deftly, Marina spread pizza sauce and then sliced a pepper and sprinkled vegetables and pepperoni on one or two pizzas, and pineapple and Canadian bacon on others. 

"Can you use blankets?" I asked as I finished the dough for the third pizza and started mixing a second batch of dough. I had a big box of heavy, warm blanket quilts that the mission had given us to share out at Christmas time.

"Yes," she admitted. 

  So as soon as pizzas were in the oven, I drove home and had Jonathan load the box of blankets. Also I remembered that in the attic was a bag of baby quilts that my sister-in-law Anita had given me a couple years ago to give to moms who chose life on the reservation. I took that along for the expectant daughter to choose from. I also gave her a Bible story book Anita had in the bag and "Is God really my Father?" booklet and a booklet titled "Life" that shares the miracle of how God weaves a baby together in the womb month by month. 

After the meal, when Marina and the man with her were about to leave, I invited them to choose two blankets apiece and asked if they'd be willing for me to pray with them. I put my arm around Marina and prayed for God to provide their needs, for them to feel His love, and that they would come to know and believe in Jesus, quoting John 3:16.  Marina seemed to be joining in my prayer. I invited them to come back to church Sunday.

"I just know God has a purpose for them coming!" I told Jonathan, and later Sally discussed the same topic with me. It was so unexpected. We'd never seen them before, yet our church doors were open and someone had passed word along. Seeds were planted that evening that only God knows when they will bloom--like the New Years Day lily on our kitchen table the very next morning.