I might ramble, so if you’re really in suspense about the dinner from the Red Cross, feel free to skip down to the 8th paragraph, but please come back. I was told that some people had a hard time replying to my previous emails because the background was black. I hope that I have now fixed that problem. Thanks to each of you that replied, and please let me know if there is anyone who might like to recieve future updates. I also realize that some may not have realized that the 2 emails were different, so just in case: here’s my newsletter link again:https://whereyousendme.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/aug2012-news.pdf.
This is a 3-day weekend. I spent Saturday working on projects for work and even stayed up till 4am once. Sunday was supposed to be a more relaxing day, and the plan was to do homework on Monday. I haven’t been sleeping much lately, so overslept today. I know, I know..It’s Sunday. So I had “home” church. At some point I got a call from some friends that they were playing volleyball. I played in the heat before coming back for a shower. (I had to wear socks because the sand was so hot in this Texas heat.)
I had agreed on Monday to speak at weekly evening event here called Sing and Share. Now keep in mind that I had missed church, so the “sundayness” of today hadn’t really sunk in. About 7:30, I got a text from a friend. “Apparently you’re one of the speakers tonight at the Sing-N-Share, come on over!” So… I swapped my shorts for the nearest clean clothes and took off running to the activity center.
A few scribbled notes and about 15 minutes later, it was my turn to speak. My day had been so off that I hadn’t prepared anything beforehand for this and we were running a little close to time. I had the option to turn it down, but I felt like I should still speak and give at least a short message. The Lord came through in a Luke 12:12/Exodus 4:12 sort of way. In one of my shortest speeches yet, the speech went from my passion for teaching computers to being invited to a Wycliffe Banquet to Cameroon and into prayers for the people of Cameroon. The Lord was present and with me and I was told that people were blessed.
7 years ago, I was invited to a Wycliffe banquet by a man named John from my church in Harrisonburg. The main speaker tonight was a missionary to Guatemala named Gonzales, but I wasn’t sure of his first name. One of the reasons I had accepted to speak tonight was that Ronaldo Gonzales (again from Guatemala) would be speaking. I admitted that since I’d arrived late, I wasn’t sure if he’d already spoken, but how the message about the Pocomchi people had been a start on my road to missions. After I spoke, Mr. Gonzales prayed for me, and I realized that it was not the same man I was expecting. Nevertheless, he knew the other Mr. Gonzales, and we had a nice laugh about it after the meeting.
Afterwards, one of the congregation, a woman named Alice, came up to me after to thank me for the inspiration and then presented a computer request. She had a couple of videos about Bible Dedications in Brazil that she needed to convert into DVDs before next week. At 8 o’clock at night, we started off towards her building for a “Computer Whisperer” house-call. As we fiddled with her computer to make the video come out in some useful format, we had a chance to talk. She asked me when I was returning to Cameroon, and that lead to a conversation about Teresa.
Alice is a retired missionary to Brazil, who works as a counselor now, and she told me about her late husband, John, who had passed away 4 years ago on the day of her 57th wedding anniversary. We found out that we had both helped move the lifeless body of someone close. Hers was her husband, mine was my roommate. She told me how helping with this task released her to know that as she moved his legs to the gurney, he had left his former home, or “moved out” as I put it. His last words had been quoting scriptures of peace from Isaiah. I told her about how someone had predicted the Second Coming on the day of Shawn’s passing, and how it must have been a very selective rapture (of course, Shawn would have been at the top of my list of people who deserved that honor).
She offered to pay me, but I turned her down. As I was leaving, she went to her fridge and pulled out a Styrofoam meal box to hand to me. Apparently she’d brought food home from working at a red cross shelter at a nearby church today, not knowing how she’d finish it as she lived by herself. Because of the timing, I’d missed dinner, so this I couldn’t turn down. I walked back to my car with 2 meal-boxes, part of a lemon custard pie, and some mini cinnamon rolls, and we’d both felt as if we’d known each other for ages.
As I arrived at my dorm, I met one of my friends, Jen, and she agreed to a late feast in the TV room. Apparently, the sandwich was not her cup of tea. (I really like that previous sentence.) Anyways… we offered it to another lady, Anne, who had popped her head into the TV room on her way to rummage through the kitchen, came in to take over where Jen left off.
The movie of choice: Blues Brothers, and I told them about my tie http://www.abcneckties.com/tn_images–T–NV13077-Mission—jpg_w350_h350.jpg that says “On a Mission from God”. When “the Penguin” spoke about what she’d do if the orphanage was closed down, she said she’d probably be sent to Africa, or Latin America, or Korea, exactly matching the fields of the three of us in the room.
So…today wasn’t at all what I expected it to be. It was better. Thanks God for your blessings this weekend and always!
Matthew and Teresa's Blog 
