What Goes Around Comes Around

Twenty years ago I hired a young college student on a part time basis to come help take care of my five children (ages ten years to twenty months old) and my mountains of laundry so that I could care for our newborn sixth child and work on packing our house and belongings to move to Uganda as missionaries. She was a tremendous help, and a great influence on my small children. After we left for the mission field we kept in touch, mostly through her mother who is like a sister to me.

Years later this girl had finished college and was back in Alabama, teaching in the Christian school at our home church. We were chased out of Uganda by terrorists and came back to our home church, where she taught some of my children in high school. She was once again a tremendous influence on our children. She was one of my kids' favorite teachers, and when she got married, Matt ended up being one of the groomsmen.

(He's in the front row on the left, in case you can't tell.) She also had Stephanie tend her guestbook, and a couple of our other boys greeted people at the door.

After she married, she moved to Texas, and we moved to Florida where my husband pastored a church. Years later her family moved back to Alabama, and her children ended up being in Stephanie's wedding.

Also about twenty years ago, two young men, brothers, began working for my husband in his painting business. Their parents were missionaries, and they had been raised in Brazil on the mission field. They were in Alabama to go to Bible college, and they spent a great deal of time at our home, eating home cooked food and playing with our children. They also spent some time with my husband doing some fishing and shooting. Bob and Charlie were both courteous, well-mannered and godly young men. On more than one occasion I told my husband that if we could raised our children to be half as good as those two, we would be successful parents.

Both young men finished school and went back home to Brazil where they got married and started families. Then they came back to Alabama to start deputation as God called them both to be second generation missionaries in Brazil. We happened to be in Alabama at the same time, and Stephanie ended up babysitting their children on occasion. Both men finished deputation and have been serving in Brazil for many years now. In fact, our church supports Bob and his family.

Almost six years ago, Stephanie married a young man who was also called to the mission field of Brazil. Six years and three children later, they have finished deputation and left for Brazil last summer. They live in the same city as Bob's family and are serving with them in the work there. In fact, while Stephanie and her husband go to language school several times a week, Bob's daughter babysits for them.

I love the way God has woven these wonderful people into and through our lives. Each of these people are so incredibly special to us, and I thank God for allowing us to have had a very small influence on them. Then they each had a bigger influence on our children. Then our children had an influence on their children. And now their children are having an influence on our grandchildren.

It's also such a comfort to me to know that, while some of our family is far away in another country, they're not alone and they're not with strangers. Through God's grace, they are with people He brought into our lives many years ago.

Isn't God good?

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PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT:  We will be taking next week off from blogging. We've had several issues with the platform for our blog, including problems with people accessing it and leaving comments on it. We'll be doing some maintenance work next week to hopefully iron out those problems. We'll be back to blogging the week of April 29th, so make sure to come back then and see our changes. And test out our repairs by leaving comments, of course!