Originally published 8/21/16
Our friends the Pfohls have recently moved their family (with three young children) to France for a two-year stint with Michelin. Lora, I read your blog post recently, the one about painfully missing home, about being in a country where no speaks (nor cares to speak) your language, with no drive thrus to make life with three kids easier. My heart ached for your sorrow and challenges, but as I thought about you, my soul sings with hope for the singular experiences you are destined to have. As you know, we're in a similar situation, in a foreign country, where no one speaks American, , where people drive on the wrong side of the road, and have really odd things on the menu. I mean, what is Bubble and Squeak supposed to be, anyway?
Isn't it easier just to say "Exit"?
And this comes on the heals of leaving my beloved South Carolina for the top of a mountain range in Tennessee, which has its own culinary and linguistic challenges. So I really feel your pain, and have thought a lot about you in the past few days. Here's what I know about you: When Michael and I came to Christ Church six years ago and entered the Muffins and Ministry class, you and Mike were among the first to welcome us. You two were the most reluctantly persistent leaders of a group of busy Episcopalians who struggle to get to Sunday School on any kind of regular basis. Yet you were there, your presence felt both physically and spiritually. You shared your struggles openly, and cried when life's circumstances wore on you heavily. You also rejoiced in other's achievements, and laughed heartily at life's foibles. I know that you lean on God, yet sometimes, like most of us, trudge ahead fearfully. Who wouldn't, after all, with three kids trailing behind you? (I have really great pictures of Lora from our Sunday School parties, but they're on my computer, which is at home in Tennessee. I'll add them later. Check back.) The most wonderful thing that you did, in our Sunday School class, was to insist on a weekly icebreaker. (Many of you readers may shudder at the mere thought of an icebreaker, a forced-fun activity designed to help strangers in a group get to know one another.) The thing is, after a while, we weren't strangers, and many in the group had known each other for years, yet you always insisted on an icebreaker question at the beginning of every class. But that closeness meant that answers had to be carefully constructed, and rather new, and often, rather intimate, as the class already knew so much about one another. It was in the icebreakers, that sometimes went so long they took the entire 40-minute class, that I felt we got to know one another - and I mean really know one another. (If you're Baptist and reading this, you may be horrified that our Sunday School class was overtaken by a game. But it wasn't a game, and that's my point. It was a way to bring our class, which is part of one of the Episcopal church's largest congregations in America, closer together. It was fellowship, as I believe Jesus intended it.) They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. Acts 2:42 In the class that you, and the Suttons, and the Pitneys, lead for us, we got to know one other, reviewed the Gospel for the day, talked about what that meant to us, personally, and, of course, had muffins. The name of the class, "Muffins and Ministry," was why I came to it in the first place, obviously. But its singular ministry, through your icebreakers, and Mike's spiritual guidance (reluctant as well, but always deeply insightful and meaningful) and the honest participation by all those in the class has forever affected me, and the way I perceive church. Which is important, because my husband is becoming a priest, and I'm likely to be intimately involved in church for the rest of my life. You, Lora and Mike, have an awesome ability to share yourselves and the love of Christ through yourselves. You can, and will, do that now, en Francais. That means "in French." But you probably know that by now. Devote yourselves to teach and fellowship, and find some bread and pray over it with your neighbors, those who know French, and those who know only American. And, most of all, teach those French people what an icebreaker is. They'll love you forever. Just like we do!! Love you, Erika and Michael
Yorumlar