African Reunion

To say I am excited is not enough. I am way way past being excited. And here is why: I get to be with friends again......friends that I love dearly, like family. Some of them I have not seen since 1972. Several of them I have seen, in that we have had this reunion every other year starting in 2001. That year we had 5 students and 1 teacher show up. In 2003 we had 16 or so show up. This year we are looking at closer to 30. We hope the numbers just keep growing. This group of people has a special bond......we were all in Monrovia, Liberia together in High School. We were from different countries, our parents were in many vastly different professions, and we had many different religious backgrounds and beliefs. We had kids from Christian, Muslim, Hindu and probably Atheistic backgrounds. When you are in High School in West Africa, you don't let minor hurdles like those mentioned above get in your way of forming deep, lasting relationships. We had something GREATER than that in common....we loved each other and our unity more than we loved our differences. How refreshing that was to a 16 year old who came from a background where you didn't have anything to do with somebody that held a different point of view than you did about any number of things.....some big, some were so small they now seem absurd. Because we put our love for each other above our differences, these friends have been very special to me for over 30 years now. Yeah, we argue and fuss and get mad at each other like families do. But when the dust has settled, we smile and hug each other and keep walking down the road of life..........together. That's what families do.

So I am taking 2 days vacation to be with part of my African family. Others can't make it because of conflicts and other commitments. A large part of my African family is still in Africa, and I look forward to a reunion with them someday too! On this side or the other one. Hopefully both.

Please pray that some of these family members who don't know the Lord will see something in me that makes them want to know more. Please pray that I will be the kind of light and salt that will be bright enough or salty enough for them to see.