Bends in the Road

 Hello!

It’s been a couple of weeks since we stepped in and said ‘hello’, so I thought I’d do that for this week’s blog.

I saw an interesting quote from Helen Keller today.  “A bend in the road is not the end of the road, unless you fail to make the turn”.

How ironic was this!  The reason we were ‘seeing’ this was that, instead of gathering with our missionary veterans of 40 years for the reunion we’ve been anticipating for over a year, we were watching it on Zoom from a few miles down the road.

Yep, you guessed it. The “bend in the road” for us this week is CoVid.  Remember that we were going on a cheap cruise a couple of weeks ago? It was lovely, sailing down the Baja Peninsula and stopping at a few Mexican ports of call along the way. By the time we stepped off the gangplank back in California, we (apparently) had both contracted CoVid. True to the reports we’ve read, it was almost a non-event; like a cold that settles in your sinuses. We continued the journey to Birmingham, Alabama, and the day before the reunion was to begin, on a whim, I decided to take a quick home test (at my daughter’s instructions) and bingo, two lines. 

We followed that later with a proper test which confirmed it. One of our fellow Journeyman missionaries, in the true spirit of fellowship, insisted that we come to her house until we can travel again. This of course rendered her unable to attend the reunion either, and so we’ve enjoyed our tiny leper colony, watching the fun on Zoom and wishing we were there. I might add that this decision invited the deep disappointment of our daughter, who felt that we should have stayed isolated in our hotel room rather than pull our friend down with us, but keep in mind that this is the American South, and one does not refuse Southern Hospitality!

In spite of the disappointment, we can’t help but be thrilled by the technology that is allowing us to participate in the reunion. Our friends have rallied with unceasing greetings and encouragements over the ether. At the end of the day, there is a bond of history that nothing can diffuse. Out of the original 80 appointees back in 1973, 70 remain this side of Heaven, and all but a few were able to move forward enough to get together for this weekend of memories, tears and laughter. Our friend took over the three devotionals and sermon that we were supposed to do, and we enjoyed the privilege of sitting back and basking in the blessings. Someone commented on the wisdom drilled into us back in orientation, “Always be ready to “pray, preach or sing” at a moment’s notice!). From the crowd, we heard, “Always knew that would come in handy one of these days!” They did let us speak, by the way, and I have to confess that Tony and I both cried like babies.  

So there was the bend in the road. We’ve managed to turn the bend, cancelled our airline tickets and are headed (by nice isolated car) on a road trip to Orlando for the really HUGE reunion coming up this next week.  We’ll be out of quarantine, and as we feel all better already, are really looking forward to seeing another mass of close associates!  

And in another upshot of God’s impeccable planning, we’ve spent the last two days with a couple of Southern Belles in their 100 yr old house, laughing and talking and getting to know each other!  We’ve all declared that we’ll be ‘friends for life’ even though they’ve had to shuffle around to be able to accommodate us.  We told them they’d have to burn down half the house to fumigate it, but they said, “You’re family and we know you’d take us in if we needed it!”  

Isn’t it a joy to be a part of the Body of Christ, especially when it comes time to navigate those bends in the road?  

Keep on truckin,

Marsha