Church Family

I've noticed that my deepest connections, my profound emotions attached to community are in my church family.  Those emotions are all triggered by the collective act of singing together.

I remember the winter of 2006, knowing that Carl and I would most likely move on from our pastoral position to continue studying, having emotions pour out of me as I sat singing in the service.  Granted, I was pregnant, but still, I ached to think of leaving my church family.

And in Fresno, I remember singing songs that touched me to my soul; God was speaking to me for sure.  Then later on hearing those songs on the radio I cried because it reminded of what I left behind and I missed being there.

Our first Sunday in Bolivia, we sang a song that we had learned at Braeside years previous.  Joel looked up at me with tear filled eyes and said, "I miss my Braeside family".

Since being back in Canada, Sunday mornings were hard.  We would pull up to another church (different every Sunday because we were visiting or preaching or presenting....) and Asha would cry and say she would miss Yuneth from church; that she wanted to go back to Bolivia to Her Church.

This church family stuff is pretty powerful.

We realized that we need to find a place to fellowship, a place to call home even if our lives right now feel so up in the air.  There's no coincidence when God has you in a certain place at a certain time, because we have experienced so much blessing from our church that we are going to now.

The kids have connections from VBS and school, have family connections (which is HUGE), and are loving Sunday School.  There are so many adult Sunday school choices, I'm just giddy!  And the preaching has been so amazing and the singing has been obviously picked just for me.

The sermon series is on being a Follower of Jesus.  Not just a believer, but an active follower and what that looks like in our world.  I think it's timely that we are hearing that just coming back from an MCC term, trying to figure out how to tangibly live out our faith where we are in light of what we've experienced.

I don't know a lot of people, but it seems they all know us from hearing from my parents.  Countless people came up to us telling us that because of the prayer chain, they had been praying for our time in Bolivia and then towards the end with the whole passport saga.  Wow!

The body of Christ is connected and powerful.  It's a group of mismatched people trying to give glory to God however they can.  It's a community that supports one another, no matter where we're from and where we're going.  It's a place where I can belong, no matter where we call home.