These moments keep happening. It's so sweet and barely noticeable. It's the sigh that comes after a good hearty laugh from teasing, and the not-quite-formed lump in the throat saying goodbye to someone you've connected with in such a short time.
Our life on the road is filled with so many of these life giving moments. Today, we got a short notice appointment with a Pastor. The word appointment is much too formal, though! The Pastor was already visiting with a woman he considers to be a spiritual Mother to him. She's almost 88, and was a missionary from 1953, to the Zulu people in South Africa. She moved all over the country, they would put up tents, saw people saved, and then her husband helped build the physical churches to build up the spiritual church, and raise up the leaders to Pastor them.
It was so wonderful when I asked which languages she spoke, and then she said, "Swedish." And my husband just beamed as he spoke to her in his mother tongue, and we all just laughed in this wonderful beaming family-making boom as the unlikeliness of it hit us, two Swedes meeting each other in Kwa-Zulu Natal, South Africa. Or as everyone calls it, KZN. Kay-zed-en for you Americans reading this. There were little signs of Sweden all over the living room and Marten looked with so much appreciation at the little signs of home. The horses, the paintings, the knick-knacks. She even served Swedish cinammon roles. She lives in a small retirement home, but immediately took our housing need to heart, and offered her house in case nothing else could be worked out.
These are the kinds of things that form that lump in my throat. When people care. When they hug us after one cup of tea and make sure we have their information before we leave. I think that is a kind of homesickness in itself, just finding a home, for however short, and then having to leave it all over again.
We made wonderful friends in Swaziland and here in KZN over Easter. People that teased us and loved us and I miss them. I'm so excited to see contacts become family and to see them get excited about ministry. This is how it's supposed to be, I'm sure of it.
Today, I was trying to make housing calls, and The Lord did a pretty cool thing. Two or three people in a row couldn't hear me very well, and I was getting frustrated. I gritted my teeth and prayed and said, Come on God! You need to be faithful! I need to be able to do this. Make it work already!" And the next call was so crystal clear that it sounded like the guy was standing right next to me. He is funny.
I am so grateful to have friends all around the world, but I am so excited for that day when we will all be in the same place, enjoying each other and our Creator for eternity.
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