Phil and I have been praying, really praying that we would be able to reach our neighbors for Christ. We are blessed to live in a cul-de-sac where everyone has kids. Every afternoon around four pm our little circle of Wingfield is all abuzz with kiddos: sidewalk chalk, softballs, tricycles, and powerwheels. It’s the best. Just the other day we brought some cookies from our house over to our neighbors from Pakistan: Hassan (about 6) and Ajuwa (about 4). No sooner did the neighbor to our left bring over a cookie from her house for Adelina. More and more our lives are becoming enmeshed and it is really cool.
Haasan and Ajuwa are raised in a Muslim home. Their mom wears a head covering and is very kind and polite. I’ve been chatting with her every chance I get and two days ago I was amazed at the beauty of a moment given to me by God. I was outside with Adelina getting ready to push the stroller to the park for a picnic supper with Phil and the kids. She was standing there looking somewhat out of place in our little suburb when we started making conversation. She kept looking at my belly which grows ever rounder by the day and asked how the baby was doing. I smiled and gushed. She paused and pursed her lips. After a long silence she said, “Ajuwa had a twin.” “I looked over at the dark and captivating little girl playing contentedly with her brother and could hear the heaviness in her mother’s voice. She went on to tell me the tragedy of how this family lost a daughter and how Ajuwa still asks for her twin. Throughout the story and with a distinguished accent she said, “It is hard for a mother, you know, to lose a child.”
I do know. I watched my own sweet mother bury her firstborn. But when someone is grieving, no one else’s grief offers any real consolation. I listened and prayed thanking God for this moment of tenderness and transparency. Perhaps one day, I will have the courage to tell her about how Jesus carried me through my own grief and the wisdom to know how to share God’s love in a way that is neither contrived nor hollow. But it starts with a moment and this moment was a beautiful start.
Please keep us in your prayers as we wait. We wait on the Lord for that happy journey to Idaho in January where we will be assigned a country in which to serve. We wait for the birth of our second son. We wait on God’s provision which seems to come these days as manna, just enough for that day, but surely it is there. He is there. We wait for more moments in which we hope to shine the light of Jesus which colors our daily life more magnificently than words can compose.
Be blessed in Him!
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