Blessed By Family

 Good Morning Faithful Friends,

Well, this week a few things happened that were not expected. First of all, I didn’t get permission to write about what I promised you last week. (Now you’re interested). It’ll come maybe someday, probably when the world isn’t so touchy politically. 

What DID come home to remind us, is the brevity of life.  Last week … what shall we call them? … a “power couple” in our Australian church for many years had a tragedy.

Let me explain.  Shey and Mena were young people when we came to Queensland about 20 years ago.  They went from our church into an organisation that we’ve worked with in missions over the years, called YWAM.  It stands for “Youth with a Mission” and has other humorous labels like “Youth Without any Money”, or how about “Young Women After Men”?  Seriously, It was an option for my kids and we feel that it’s really admirable what they do in the lives of young people all over the world.  

Life went on, Shey and Mena had two kids, kept working with youth, then had twins, who are now just 5.  Finally, Mena had enough time, and he got his Bachelors degree in social work, which was so appropriate to their lives.  His diploma arrived the day he died.

He was on a hike with some of his “at risk kids”, when he had a “widow maker” heart attack and, there, in the wild, could not be resuscitated. They were on an island only accessible by boat, so help was a long time coming, and I can only imagine what those poor kids went through. He was 41 years old.

“Why?”  everyone asks.  Mena was as fit and healthy as a man could be … “Why do the good die young?” we always say.

We couldn’t go to the funeral because it’s a 3-hr flight away up north where they’re investing their lives with marginalised and indigenous people.  Fortunately, we were able to watch the service online and ,well … it was held in a stadium; need I say more?  The pastor preached a straight gospel message to the hundreds of boys Mena had mentored. Because Mena was Fijian, it also included a lot of (Christian) ritual that was pretty impressive.  Check out “Fijian haka” on Google. It’s a traditional war dance that will scare the socks off anyone, but it’s also used in times like these as a demonstration of highest respect for a man who was a warrior for God.

But wait, there’s more!  In our church back in the Gold Coast, the news had just broken as we gathered for worship last week.  When our pastor, who has led the youth for many years and knew them well, got up to preach …. he couldn’t speak.  Every time he opened his mouth, he started crying. 

The whole congregation, maybe 150? started crying with him.  The pastor finally was able to explain about Mena to those who were visiting, and that he was so grief stricken he hadn’t had time to prepare his message. Holding up a piece of paper, he said, “Here are my bullet points. Help me. Please.”

What followed was one of the best sermons I’ve heard in a long time, delivered by the church body as the tears flowed. Even the visitors joined in, offering insights into the pastor’s theme of “Unity, faith and hope, and mainly service.” 

What came out of that service was a living testimony about the very things he had wanted to share. We all told of our own faith challenges and the hope we have because we are part of a body of believers. That’s unity. That’s family like God intended. 

We recalled so many similar stories of families caught in the dramas of life, much like Shey and Mena and how we all joined hands around them and got them thru.  NO one left without really feeling the ‘family’ we have with believers. I even heard some visitors say they wanted to come back and explore this church further.  

And so this Sunday, as you move towards worship with your ‘families’ I want you to think of two things:

1.  We don’t know how many days God has ordained for us.  Be prepared.

2.  As believers, we must never forget that all of us have a ‘family’ to take care of us, to love us and to be there in times of need.

Have a blessed week.  

Marsha