Paying Forward

The folks were gathered in the church Fellowship Hall. It was Sunday afternoon and one of those rare moments in the life of a church. There were no committee meetings. There were no discussions of failing financial resources. There were no complaints, as far as the parson knew, of the pastor's latest foible. People were laughing, glad to see each other even though they'd seen each other only three hours before. The finger foods were being devoured with favorable comments about certain member's gastronomic delights.

And then it happened. He stood. He said, “Can I say something to everyone, please.” Everyone stopped what they were doing. Everyone sat down. He wasn't a member of the church. In fact, it was the first time he'd set foot in the parson's church. But, intuitively, everyone knew they wanted to hear what he had to say.

He began the story. The story began two years before when he and his wife and their two teenage girls were living in an abandoned house because they were homeless. There was no electricity in that house. There was no running water. But it offered shelter from the rain. And then the family advocate in the school system had put them in contact with the social worker whose work was financed by the parson's church.

He talked of being accepted into the parson's church's transitional housing program, of moving into the church's parsonage. He told of the struggles to overcome bad habits, to learn how to budget, to make right decisions in anticipation of events not to come in years. He talked of him and his wife obtaining meaningful employment. He talked of the classes at the technical college. He talked of the daughter who was not present at the reception excelling in college. He talked of the daughter who was at the gathering making plans for her college education. He smiled broadly as he related their relationship with the social worker who was, according to him, part angel and part drill instructor. He talked of the new place he and his family were moving to this week, of how they'd been decorating it, furnishing it. When he finished there were no dry eyes in the room.

As the day wound down and the celebration came to a close, the parson walked outside with the younger daughter. “So,” the parson asked, “what are you planning to study when you go to college?”

“I'm going to get a degree in social work,” she said. “Then I'm going to do for some family what this church has done for mine.”

Some days, it's good to have an extra Sunday afternoon meeting.

Comments

[wondering aloud]

goodness, u might have put a health and safety warning on that post...

THAT is brilliant