Monday, August 4, 2008

Family Reunion

We just finished our first annual meeting with all of the great missionaries of West Africa. We enjoyed our time of sharing, fellowship, and reenergizing. The best way to describe this event is a family reunion of people not related by blood, but by the blood of the lamb all sharing the same call. We laughed together, cried together, and covenanted together to work diligently to share the gospel with West Africans so that they have the opportunity to spend eternity praising our Maker.

It was a little odd to find myself in a room of people that I'd never or barely met and yet somehow be joined together by something a little difficult to put my finger on. Here are some of the things that made us an odd family of sorts.
There was the family resemblance. The Bible says, "How beautiful are the feet that bring good news..." and these feet were all beautiful with a strange tanline from wearing flip flops every day.
There was the commonality of relatives. We shared a love in our hearts for brothers, sisters, nieces and nephews with whom we share no blood relation.
There was a bond of hearts that knows what it's like to cry when they sing praise songs in English, grieve with the broken heart of one that's lost a child (a common greatest fear), feel deeply the loss of those retiring from our family, and who know the sorrow of leaving our most precious posession (family and friends) in a far away land.
Then there were those strange things. We shared a family favorite perfume, Deep Woods Off! We all grabbed for long sleeves and sweaters as the temperature dipped below a chilly 85 degrees. All of our lists and notes are in multiple languages because although we are gaining new words in new languages, we're losing old ones!

So we are glad to have met our new African family! We had a long, tiring week, but we are back to life as usual now!

Love to all!
Heather

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