It had been a dark month. It wasn't completely unexpected, more than once we had been warned by the more seasoned missionaries that the fifth month was difficult. October was meeting expectations. The weight of home-sickness, intense fatigue and financial concerns were taking its wearisome toll both physically and emotionally.
Then one blustery afternoon, I sank into my computer chair and opened my email. With the usual expediency I began deleting the latest round of spam. News updates from 1070WIBC. A deal on a Papa Johns Pizza. Someone sent me a YoVille request on Facebook. But then my eyes hit upon an email address that I didn't recognize.
I read the email carefully, "Hello, I'm Ashley Weaver and I'm with 13 other AIM missionaries in Szekesfehervar." It appears there is a group of people traveling through Hungary looking for ministry possibilities. I quickly jumped to the AIM (Adventures in Missions) website to make sure I knew who they were. I fired the email off to a national worker and made a mental note to follow up with him in a week.
I few days later, I returned again to my worn out chair perched in front of my desk. Pulling up my Skype to see if my parents were on, I read the first name at the top of my contacts, "Ashley Weaver" and God quietly whispered "say hi". Without thinking I wrote a quick greeting and pressed "enter". It was at this moment I thought, "wow, I really don't have much to say."
Ashley popped back immediately in a very cheerful way. She told me that half of their traveling band had been left behind and that they had trekked to Budapest looking for possibilities. Amazingly, I realized that they were within 2 miles of my home in Budapest, so I offered to set up a meeting for Wednesday evening. Then God decided the time to move had come.
Wednesday, as I sat among a crowd of people on the bus, I contemplated the past month. We were tired, we were lonely, my Grandfather had just passed away, and while I didn't admit this publicly, dear reader, I was feeling a lot of pain inside over it. This time Corinne met me at the door.
"Jonathan, come read this," she said with intensity in her voice. I dropped into my familiar chair and scanned the email. Something bad had happened, they were stranded, at Keleti Train Station. I asked her if they wanted to come here, just to figure things out. They said they might need to, their leader Mike had dared getting twisted about in the large concrete jungle that was Pest, in search of new lodging. We waited. Then I heard a whisper. "Go get them." Why Lord? "Go get them," he said again. Ok, Lord, "Yes". - Jonathan
No comments:
Post a Comment