We’re going to Nova Scotia!

From the Pastor’s Desk (63)

August 5, 2001

My wife and I will be taking a short trip to Nova Scotia from this Tuesday to Saturday.  The Bakers and the Martinezs will take care of our children while we are gone for about five days!  Even though I know for certain that they will be well taken care of and have a great time with their friends I still feel uneasy about leaving all three kids behind.  I just cannot help but feel this way because this is going to be our first time being away from our children as a couple for more than a day!

The reason why we are going on this trip is because John Kohl, who is very dear and precious to some of you who have known him while he was studying at Rice and attending our church, has been inviting us for the past several years to come to his parents’ home in Nova Scotia and spend some time resting and enjoying the beautiful nature God created.  When he was here in Houston, he was a poor graduate school student.  So, when we got together at IHOP on Mondays for the purpose of sharing and mentoring, I often took the tab for our breakfast.  When he got into a wreck with his Hyundai Excel that had no A/C, I also remember God prompting me to help him financially, which I gladly obeyed! 

Now that he is working at a pharmaceutical company in Indiana and doing well financially, he is inviting us again and also paying for us for the whole trip from Saturday to Saturday, which I cut it short because I wanted to worship on Sunday at New Life.  He has created Strategic Kingdom Investments and Partnerships and this ministry is to which we are invited this week with six other pastors and their wives plus his parents, former missionaries to Germany and Ivory Coast, whose expenses are all paid for by him.  He is doing this so that we could all gather together not only to rest and enjoy but also to share our ministries with one another for the purpose of learning and making ourselves more effective for God’s Kingdom!  What an incredible vision this is and what an awesome way it is to invest your money in style!  Honestly, we would not have been able to take this trip on our own had it not been for John’s provision and generosity!  So, we truly appreciate him for his acts of kindness.

Every once in a while we get invited over to your house for dinner or get treated at a restaurant.  We sometimes receive small gifts from you when you come back from an overseas trip.  You are all very busy and tight financially, but these acts of kindness truly refresh my heart.  I am not writing this to subtly encourage you to do it more.  Rather, I am writing this to express my sincere appreciation for all of you who have shown or even thought about showing my family and me your loving kindness. 

Although I am fully convinced that it is God who brought us down here for His Kingdom purpose and we are excited about it, once in a great while we wish that our parents and siblings also lived nearby so that we could rather freely ask for help when we need it.  I guess we still have long ways to go in becoming a biblical community where Christian brothers and sisters were considered closer than the earthly ones.  Nonetheless, I think all of you, who are living close to your parents or siblings, are blessed.  You probably do not know what those who left their hometowns go through thousands of miles away from their close knit family.

So, as many of you have been doing already, offer helping hands, especially to those who are married with children whose physical family members are not living in Houston.  You do not have to send them to Nova Scotia.  Perhaps babysitting their children for about 3-4 hours on a Saturday afternoon or evening might be sufficient for them to be away from their kids and enjoy a quiet and relaxed dinner at a restaurant, go watch a movie or do some shopping.  This will be one of the things that will make New Life a truly awesome and attractive community!

“Your love has given me great joy and encouragement, because you, brother, have refreshed the hearts of the saints.”  (Philemon 7)

Your pastor,

Eric