Last week was a special week. We went to the park and walked the 2 mile path around the lake every morning. I don't get out much. This was a lot for me. I found it so refreshing exchanging "good mornings" with strangers. The man you see talking to us, his name is "Corona". He helped look for my keys the morning I left them in the bathroom. He was so kind. Every day after that he would talk to us when we met on the trail. He told us how at 8 1/2 years of age he was on his own in the streets, making a life for himself in Manhattan. He got room and board by doing small jobs at a restaurant. Amazing. I met two gentlemen, friends and "birder" buddies, with their cameras and binoculars (we had ours too!) eyeing God's beautiful creation. Micah spotted for us a wild rat! They were impressed :) We will see them again on Monday night at Southern Wings Bird Club! They told us about this club and we are so excited to join them the 2nd Monday evening of each month now! The last day we met a brainiac named Joey who told us all sorts of things about fishing and even about the birds that were flying around. He says he will be following in his family's footsteps and becoming a commercial orange farmer in Florida. He told me we eat too much food in America to grow it all organically. Hmmm.... I'm sure there is a good answer to that but I didn't argue with him. :)
It was just good to be out...meeting my neighbors-smiling and hopefully sharing God's love with those we met. No more hiding away, no more just hanging out with my Christian friends, it's time to walk among the world. They need us.
I want to have over our neighbors this year. We've lived here for 7 years now and while I've met several of our neighbors, I don't know them. It is my goal to have over one or two neighborhood families over to the house for dinner each month this year. Conviction has struck me lately that I'm not here to have a beautiful house, with a picket fence, a dog and whatever else I consider ideal-I'm here, to yes, be a wife to Steve, mother my boys, and TO BE MISSIONAL. With Steve-with the boys-we are to be missional together. I don't know if "missional" is a word but what I mean by it is this: We only have one life to live for Christ. And I want more to know him. And I want to do my part, in him, through him, to love my neighbors and to share with them the immeasurable love that I've been given in Christ.
"He said also to the man who had invited him, "When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just." Luke 14:12-14
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