The River Church Community

A few weeks ago, I asked River members to send me their missional stories.  In this bLoG, I decided that it was time to share one story that Jody Chang sent me.  And just os you know, she has changed the names for confidentiality. 
 
A few years ago, I met Anna as she walked her kids to school in front of my house.  I'd seen her before, but wasn't sure if she spoke English.  Over the years, we saw each other a few times.  She and her boys came to play in our sandbox, and she invited us to her third son's birthday party.  Their family moved twice in our neighborhood, and each time, I had to track them down by going to their old house and knocking on a neighbor's door.  "Do you know where Anna and her family moved?"  "I think they're on 15th now, near the park."
 
A year and a half ago, I went over -- it had been a long time since I'd seen them.  I asked if she and the boys wanted to go to the park with me.  "Oh, we can't... John is really sick."  "You mean he has a cold or something like that?"  "No, it's cancer."  I started taking them meals and buying them the organic fruit and vegetables the Stanford doctor recommended.  But increasingly, my heart was being drawn to Joe (now 10 years old), John's older brother and the second of the four boys.  He has some learning disabilities and behavioral problems, and has been sent to four different schools in the neighborhood.  I asked Anna if I could start tutoring Joe once a week and she eagerly agreed.  Garrett, a friend from our Small Group, comes over every Thursday afternoon with his daughter Mia.  He entertains Mia and my daughters while Joe and I do some academic work, and then teaches Joe checkers or chess while I start cooking dinner.  Sometimes Joe and the girls bake cookies with me.  Sometimes we play in the sandbox.  Joe loves dinosaurs, so one time I borrowed all our preschool's plastic dino's and we made prehistoric baking soda volcanoes in the sandbox.
 
I love seeing Joe blossom and experience new things.  And it has been a wonderful gift for me to be involved with a family whose life journey is so different from mine... and yet so similar in many ways.