Home again

Hi all,

A few hours ago, my husband, Hank, and I came home from a quick trip to Sioux Center, Iowa for a family reunion. We stayed on campus at Dordt College for a get together with my mom's family. I wasn't completely able to put SERVE out of mind but we really did enjoy the time away. As we were busy doing a lot of activities, I thought how SERVE and the reunion were really alike in a lot of ways.

1. Laughter. We laughed and laughed. Sometimes we were remembering really silly things we did as cousins or our parents told stories about things that happened in the past. But we also laughed at things that happened right there in the games we were playing or something a little kid said.

At SERVE I am sure we will laugh a lot. There will be games and planned things that will be fun but there will also be times when we are just hanging out and funny things will happen.

2. Tears. My dad and my brother passed away since our last reunion so we took time to go to their graves to remember them. Some of us cried then and some of us cried at the Sunday morning service when we sang the favourite hymns of those family members who were no longer with us. Every family there had something sad to remember so we hugged each other and remembered. And then as we remembered we started to laugh again - at the same time!

There will be tears at SERVE. Someone may be homesick or get their feelings hurt. I pray we won't have anything sadder than that but whatever happens we will talk and we will pray and in the end I'm sure we will at least smile again.

3. Getting to know people. I hadn't seen some of my cousins for many years. The best part of the weekend was that we had a lot of things to do together so that it was easy to get to know each other again.

We will get to know each other at SERVE because we will be doing a lot of things together. Our prayer and worship times will bring us together but so will working at the sites or playing games in the sun. I had a great time with my mom's family but I am looking forward to expanding my family in Christ through working, worshiping and playing with all of my SERVE friends in a few days.

I'm praying for all of you and for our time together. I hope we will understand what is really means to be brothers and sisters in Christ.

Carol