There have been three small big moments in this last month that I want to highlight for you. What do I mean by small big moments? They’re the little things we do that stay with us, the small acts that leave big impressions, and I’ve been blessed to have at least three of them in the last three weeks.
- The first took place in the first few days of being here. We had been at the local supermarket the day before buying groceries for the week and a couple of us had passed by there on the way back from surfside church. We walked under the bridge, passing a homeless woman sat on the path, and on the way out the other side we were engaged by a homeless man asking if we might spare a blanket because it was cold for him and his wife (the woman under the bridge) at night. A couple of us spoke with him and I remembered that I had taken the blanket and pillow from the flight to Jo’berg – items I wouldn’t need given that we are in a hostel with kitted out bunks this month. Megan and I decided that we would return a little later as she had a blanket to spare as well and on the way to hike the mountain I have shown the panorama from in an earlier post we stopped to drop them off. Peter, the man we were giving these to, shared with us about the situation he and his wife are in, how their kids are grown up and away from them, struggling with alcohol themselves, and with tears in his eyes, he thanked us for the simple act of giving a couple of blankets. I honestly don’t know what to do in these situations but I was moved and we stayed chatting and encouraging him until the police showed up to move the homeless people (this couple and some others with them) on to somewhere else.
- Another simple yet impacting situation happened last week. We go to the two New Chapter Foundation locations on a Wednesday and Friday and we noticed that one of the girls who helps out at the second location was missing. We visited her house on our way home and found that she had been unwell with swollen tonsils. Nothing we could do about that really, so we gathered around her and prayed for her before leaving (when we weren’t distracted by the family’s new black Labrador puppy, Zoom Zoom). When we arrived on Friday she was there and proceeded to tell us that as soon as we left she felt completely better and had been well ever since. This wasn’t even a big prayer for healing session but a simple act of faith led to her complete healing.
- Finally, this morning we had a brief group meeting as we do every few mornings, and one of our girls shared that the cleaning lady had expressed how she would miss us when she was gone, that we were the only ones who ever really acknowledged that she was there and that included her in things (like practicing worship music a few days before). We called her into our meeting (she was cleaning the kitchen) and surrounded her, laid hands on and prayed for her – followed by getting teary-eyed hugs from her.
Turns out simple things, things that don’t even fall under the category of our “ministry”, can be some of the most profound aspects of our race.
