Well If you can't trust church people...

This time last week I was in NJ sleeping on a couch in the prayer room of Beacon Church with my girls Becky and Jen.  Becky and I had successfully crossed the GW bridge and arrived safely in NJ.  Jen so kindly gave us the tour and introduced us to a very loving kind homeowner named Marie.

Marie (pictured at right feedng a team lunch) is a retirement aged lady with arthritis and bad knees, who has been caring for her bed-ridden husband Louis for going on 19 years now.   Prior to Sandy, she had to evacuate with her husband to a nursing home facility, where they remained displaced for eight days.  When they were finally able to return home, she found water in the entire crawlspace under the home, and water damage in her garage and breezeway where she kept many of her clothes, her food pantry and her freezer.  We have been able to remove her saturated insulation, gut her breezeway, and help clean out and pressure wash her garage.  We have also re-insulated the crawlspace, and hung drywall in the breezeway so far.

When I met Marie, she welcomed us into her home and began to show us pictures on her camera of the work the teams had accomplished.  While talking with her, she told us how she's been waiting to get her photos printed but no one has been able to wait the one hour at the photo desk to get them printed.  Well, that's all we needed to hear and we were off to CVS with her memory card to print off the 470+ photos.  As we were walking out the door with her memory card, some cash, and her name to pick up her prescriptions, she says, "Well if you can't trust church people, I might as well not get out of bed." 

That simple line struck a cord with me.  Our staff and volunteers have demonstrated the love of Christ to Ms. Marie and communicated to her through their words and actions that us "church people" can be trusted! How awesome! God is AWESOME! I praise God for putting Ms. Marie in our path!  Then of course to top it off, Ms. Marie fed us when we returned with her photos! The kindness and generosity of people who have been through so much continues to amaze me.  I pray that the Body of Christ including myself continues to show the world that we are trustworthy because Christ alone is worthy to be trusted!