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The young couple I met earlier this week that had moved into Cayce which we gave an A/C and promised to come back was on schedule for this morning. Unrelated to meeting this couple (yeah, right – unrelated…God has His ways…), I was contacted the next day after meeting this couple by an Otter Creeker who had a baby bed to donate and asked if he and his young daughter might be able to help deliver and set it up. So we made plans for them to meet me this morning to deliver some furniture as well as the baby bed. After a few stops to pick up a sofa and love seat and then to the OCC furniture house for a couple of dressers, some kitchen supplies, fresh veggies from the OCC garden and some bedding, we headed into town to make the deliveries.

We were able to load in all the furniture while my friend and his daughter worked with the mom and the 4 month old baby boy to re-assemble the baby bed. Since my interaction was more with the father and the neighbors who were asking what all was going on, I’ll have to talk to the baby bed assembler team and see what impressions they came away with from the day. For me, I saw the potential for relationships to be built. Not much happens on a first meeting – in fact, much of what does happen is positioning on the part of the people we are reaching out to. They have no reason to trust us or even believe that anything we are telling them will happen – things like we’ll be back. Experience has taught most of them to tell me a story that has the potential to touch my heart and cause me to want to give them something – out of sympathy. I understand that so when, at our first meeting, they told me they had come to Nashville from St. Louis to look for work and didn’t know anyone in Nashville, I listened but didn’t let that statement register as fact. As we chatted today while carrying in furniture one of the neighbors asked the father if his cousin was stopping by later today….Now I had a choice to confront the man with the apparent mistruth he had told me just a few days earlier or I could choose to listen and learn. I took the latter option and believe it to be the choice that will allow our relationship the potential to grow. That’s what this ministry is all about.

After dropping my friend and his daughter back off so they could head home, I headed back out to another OCC member who had called to offer his washer & dryer as he was moving and didn’t need it. When he called earlier in the week he asked if I knew of anyone who could use it. Once again, I had gotten a call just a few days earlier from a woman who is keeping 2 young ladies at her house as they try to get back on the road to recovery. She called to tell me her washer had gone out. Now I get the call about a washer donation – just coincidence?? I don’t think so… I expected a little trouble getting it loaded into her house and was worried since I was by myself.

Once again, just by chance (yeah, right) I get a text message from another OCC member asking if I needed help with anything. I called and asked him to meet me at this lady’s house. He agreed and I headed that way. 10 minutes into the trip I noticed the OCC van was overheating so I pulled over at a gas station and saw that the radiator reservoir was dry. I bought some coolant, filled it up and started again, but it kept overheating. So I called my friend – who was already at the house waiting on me – and told him I was going to be another 45 minutes. I drove back to the church, dropped the van and hooked the trailer to my Explorer and headed out. His willingness to wait on me spoke volumes about his desire to serve. He had the chance to meet the lady and her 2 guests as they thanked us for the washing machine.

There’s a lot of chaos in the world. I’m feeling pulled into it more and more. It makes me wonder how Jesus handled that as He walked, talked and taught? Seems like much of it comes from our own decisions that, in many cases, we know are going to cause chaos to erupt. Why do we do that? Can it all be laid at the feet of our fallen nature? How do we change? What are we to learn from chaos? Should it be a trait of Christ-followers to rise above chaos and be an island of peace and contentment? What would that show our neighbors and the world if we were able to walk that path? More to come on all of that….