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| Lorin and the coed team about to depart from Biloxi |
My named was being paged over the airport speakers. Whoa, what did I do? Was there something in my baggage that was going to have me ejected from the plane? Turns out that someone just wanted to switch seats with me so he could sit closer to his family. Was this my divine appointment? “Lord do you want me to share something with these people?”, I prayed I took the time to share about our trip to MS and what we’d been doing the past week with Habitat. I was glad that I’d had a chance to share with the family and left them with a card for the website.
A short time later, a young couple took the 2 seats next to me. We struck up a conversation and I shared a little about our work in Biloxi and gave them (Justin and Shelly Brown) some background about some of the other ministries that Evergreen is involved with. I told them about the adoptions from China, Zoe Intl. and the trip to Thailand, Malawi and the kitchen, and Don Julian. Justin took my Gulf Coast card and then we both went back to our reading. After a while, Justin asked me if he could ask me some questions.
Turned out he was a Christian and he wanted to know more about our global focus on outreach because he wanted to see his own church develop a global focus. As we shared he mentioned David Platt and the impact his ministry made in his life. I asked Platt was the author of Radical which I read last year in preparation for my 1st mission trip to Biloxi. We both liked what Platt had to say and went on talking throughout the entire flight. Shelly shared how she’d been saved through a blog that was written by a Christian women who returned her emails and calls and helped her come to know the Lord.
Shelly went on to start her own blog in spite of being a busy mom of 3 kids- ages 5, 3, and 1. She’d reached a point where she’d decided to stop blogging as she felt that it had become an idol in her life, but one of her readers contacted her and begged her not to stop as they had become a Christian as a result of reading her blog! Praise God! Anyways, we ended up asking Justin and Shelly if we could pray for them and before we could start Justin ended up praying a beautiful blessing for us and our church because he was so inspired by what we do and our theme of being blessed to be a blessing. We did manage to pray a blessing for J & S and their church and future. (J is studying with Moody Bible College and thinking of going to Texas to go to seminary.)
Divine Appointments have been defined to me as times when God arranges a meeting that wasn’t on your schedule. I wasn’t “supposed” to sit with the Brown’s but God certainly set up our meeting and it was wonderful!
I’ll close with a “building” joke that one of the guys shared with me. We’d been working up on the slippery metal roof and he said, “If you wash your soles/souls you’ll have a better walk (with the Lord.) Thanks, it was a great week in Biloxi and in spite of being REALLY sleepy since I’ve gotten home -I miss you all and would have stayed another week if it had been an option…next year…2 week coed team?!?…yeah team, go!