The Good Samaritan

Maybe not everyone knows it, but when I (Gloria) work part time at the city bus lines here in town. It is a great way to meet all kinds of interesting people all over the city.
Recently, I was driving one afternoon on one of those routes that is almost impossible to keep on time due to the amount of people riding and the traffic. The longer I drove, the further behind I became, with little chance of catching up. I was pulling into the grocery store parking lot and noticed a long line of people waiting. No chance of catching up here.
I pulled up and smiled at the people boarding, daring not to look at my watch. There, at the end of the line, I inwardly groaned. Two large individuals, a man and woman, were waiting. The lady was using a walker overflowing with groceries and they both were poorly dressed. Why was I not surprised when they had to fumble for their passes?
As they lumbered back to their seats, I hurried to shut the door and hopefully try to make up some lost time.
I began maneuvering my way down the streets again through the slow traffic. Somewhere, I began to hear the conversation going on behind me.
"I am so proud of you, girl! You're an over comer!" someone was saying.
"Yea, we've sure been down and out before. Sometimes you have to get to the very bottom before you can start working your way up."
Somewhere behind me a girl was sharing,"I don't have anything but this apartment, not even a bed or a table, but I am so glad to have my own place now, I don't care."
"Do you know anyone in town? You can come over and visit us. Come visit our church. They are always happy to see new people." the other lady was saying.
I glanced back in the mirror, trying to see who was talking. One was a girl I had not even noticed get on, just another girl on the bus. But she had no friends? No money?
Who was that encouraging her? Who was that now offering her advice on how to get some furniture and help from the Salvation Army?
I realized, to my shame, it was the large woman with the walker. I listened as they exchanged addressed and phone numbers, and eventually got off the bus. And a new thought began to go through my mind as I remembered the story of the Good Samaritan.
The Samaritan was the one where the real issue lied with the expert in the law asking the question, "Who is my neighbor?". And the girl, the wounded man? How often am I just in too big of hurry to even notice there is a need?

Coming Home

This Sunday we had the priviledge of attending the church that Gloria grew up in and we were married in six years ago. There is something always special about coming home to a place where people know you. Of course, it has been several years since we had been there, so there were many new faces, but it has specail also to meet new faces in the crowd. It ended up being especially nice because they had a picnic, complete with horse rides, clowns, and games for the kids. Sam really liked the horses and the special sand box they had, full of soft white sand- great for wiggling toes in. We got to spend a lot of time reconnecting with old friends we had not seen in quite a while.
One neat thing was that the church had just had a missions trip to Mexico with the youth, so we had a chance to hear about their trip to work at an ophanage there. It was really neat to see how God is working in those teens lives as well as in Mexico. What a joy it is to see God working!
This visit came at a time when we were starting to feel a bit discouraged. What a blessing it was to step out in faith and see God do good things.