“I was a stranger and you welcomed me”

I snapped the picture, turned, and willed my wobbly knees to take me back into the house. Only then did I realize that dear Glenny probably didn't know prim, proper women from upscale suburbs don't like snakes in their homes. (If you missed the Glenny-and-the-snake story, click on Have you ever been standing in front of a mirror when you yelled at your kids?)

Back in the kitchen, I trembled, still feeling sick to my stomach, overwhelmed by dense, humid, equatorial heat, and feeling terrible over yelling at Glenny.

But I told myself, “You have to pull yourself together. Get back to work.”

Numb, I stooped over the open suitcase on my kitchen floor, pulling out tightly packed kitchen equipment, towels, sheets, shoes, clothes, and books, traveling from room to room putting them in their proper places.

Karen, Tim, Ron, and Phil McIntosh

The pilot who had that morning flown us into Lomalinda, Ron McIntosh, and his wife, Karen, had invited us to dinner that first evening. Karen Mac, as everyone called her, drove to our house on her Honda 90 motorbike, scrunched my little Karen on the seat between the two of us, and called out, “Hang on, and don’t be bashful about it.”

By then Ron had arrived on his motorbike and Dave and Matt hopped on with him. We were off on our first moto rides.

Karen drove down and around and up several hills but, partway up a two-tiered one, she stopped and called back, “Now I have to drive up the steepest hill in the center. Hold on tight—and don’t wiggle!”

I surveyed the hill. Steep? An understatement. And it was strewn with loose stones.

I couldn’t believe she’d try that incline with the three of us on her little putt-putt motorbike, but we followed her instructions, and she knew what she was doing. We made it to the top without a problem. We stayed on the peak for only seconds, passed by the radio tower, and then zoomed down the other side.

Karen served homemade pizza with precious mushrooms she’d hand-carried from Bogotá. We felt honored to share in a birthday party for their son, Tim.

Having welcomed many newcomers, Ron and Karen knew how tired we were and offered to take us home early, and we didn’t argue.

But the evening wasn’t finished. Lyle and Carol Ann Connet stopped by with Paul and Jennifer, my kids’ future classmates. Carol Ann handed me homemade cinnamon rolls. What a treat!

After the Connets left, Garnet and Barbara Holteen stopped by with a loaf of Barbara’s bread.

Everyone’s thoughtfulness and generosity

blessed my weary heart.

Through those people and their gifts, our family experienced Jesus’s words, “I was a stranger, and you welcomed me” (Matthew 25:35) (from Chapter 6, Please, God, Don’t Make Me Go: A Foot-Dragger’s Memoir)

On that first evening in Lomalinda,

little did I know what the next couple of days held.

And little did I know that Karen McIntosh

had spoken words of wisdom that evening:

“Hold on tight—and don’t wiggle.”

My first week in Lomalinda would have been

so different, so much better,

if only I had recognized Karen’s words’ broader significance,

if only I had applied those words’ meaning to my hour-by-hour living.