Ever hear the phrase, “My ship’s come in!”? We had an experience like that. Well, it was more like a long-lost canoe washing ashore but here’s the story.
Three years ago we were renewing all of our insurance policies for our family, the church, and another missionary family. We wrote a check out for around $5,000 which was to cover our various policies for the entire year. What we didn’t know was three of our policies could only be renewed 6 months at a time. The total for those policies would be around $2100. Our Italian insurance agent was a friend and was going to apply the rest of the money at the 6-month mark and renew the policies for us without having to go through the extra paperwork etc.
In October 2003, we received an urgent notice from our insurance company requesting that we pay the $2100 to keep our policies maintained for the second have of 2003. After meeting with the company, we knew something was askew. So, we went back and researched our bank statements (bank statements here are not written with the customer in mind — they are written for budding code-crackers), our check stubs, and our receipts. Sure enough! We had paid the insurance for the entire year. With a folder of copies in hand, it was time to go back to the company, calculate through the whole mess, and ever-so-gently reveal their error to them.
In true European/Italian fashion, we recalculated every policy and reviewed every page. Continuing to form, the agent looks at our check stub and replies, “Oh, you wrote the check out to our agent who is no longer working with us. You still need to pay us for the policy.” Our incredulous but ever-so-gentle response was, “So what!? We still paid out this $2100.” The insurance company said, “Well, we never received the money from the agent so it looks like you still owe us and he pocketed the cash when he left.”
It’s hard to remember my response at that moment because I’ve blacked it out as one of my not-so-finer-moments on the mission field. Well, I called up my friend and brother Roberto and we all met at a local cafe to get to the bottom of the “double-priced insurance.” My friend explained right away that he and his wife had just decided to divorce. He said that his wife’s attorney managed to clean out his bank account and take all the money he was saving for the church with which he was going to buy the new policy at mid-year. We were a bit dumbfounded. We were surprised that they didn’t tell us about the divorce, didn’t tell us about the policies only lasting 6 months, and didn’t tell us that he lost our money hoping we would overlook the mistake. He asked us for mercy. We gave him mercy. We wanted him to see God’s mercy because he is not yet born again in Mercy. But we still asked him to restore the church’s money. He asked us for 9 months to pay it back. We gave him two years. He wrote us a check for $400 right away and then promised to have it back to us soon. We wrote out a gentlemen’s contract and prayed with him.
Nine months went by… no word. So I called my friend only to find out that home and cell phone numbers had been changed (in Italy, there’s not a syruppy woman’s voice that gives you the new numbers either). The insurance company (for devious reasons of their own) was pressing me every time I went in there to join them in a lawsuit against my friend to recover the money. They said, “Don’t you want justice?” to which I thought, “You people gotta’ stop lobbing me softballs like this — you have no idea what you mean when you say justice.” The other problem would have been that the church would have had a black eye in the local papers and a giant paper trail that ended at a mountain of legal fees.
Fast-forwarding through 15 months, we’re thinking we’re left with a bag of empty promises so we’re just living as if the money is lost for good and the “nice guys get walked-on again”. Still no word from our friend, contract expiring on the 19th, & consistently thinking about how to “find” our friend we decided to try one more time after the New Year. We had also hit brick walls on about 8 other projects we were working on this last month too. Lo and behold, this morning and out-of-nowhere a new cell number appears on our phone, our friend materializes in an hour, a check materializes 30 mins. later, and a gentlemen’s contract went up in flames right after that. We walked through the difficulties of the past couple years (which were pretty dark) and our friend said, “Every month when I got paid, I would think - Rob & the Church - and I’d put a little money away. Even though we didn’t get to talk much over these past couple years, you’re a real friend and good person.”
I’m happy for the Church. I’m blown away that two years of wondering what-to-do ends in an hour. I’m thankful to God for the blessing & encouragement & being so good. I’m still trying to wrap my brain around the lessons to learn from this. Maybe I’ll see some more when I take my friend to lunch on Tuesday.
We had a wonderful Christmas Day. It was awesome to see what our church family did on Christmas morning. We did a Christmas Giving Project altogether and we bought a new washing machine for one of our families, jackets for our African brothers, and assistance to some of the immigrant sisters in our church. It was a good turnout of folks too. Some people missed it and, in turn, they missed out on a neat “church family” event. The spirit was so warm and joyful. We loved it.
Our family then had a great afternoon together. We opened presents, ate, and played together. Then we got on the phone and called friends and family in Arizona, Hawaii, Colorado, Texas, Iowa, Wisconsin, Florida, England, Germany, & Italy.
One of our supporting churches, Beth Eden Baptist of Denver, sent over packages for our children. They did a fantastic job. In fact, right now there’s a tent and lawn chair set up in our living room where our happy little camper will be sleeping for the night — and probably for the week!
As a family, we’d like to thank so many people for a wonderful day. So many folks in our church blessed us, our family blessed us, and our friends abroad blessed us. Most of all, Heaven blessed us.
For our Christmas Morning Service, one of our brothers read the following challenge to our congregation. The original writing came from a Gloria Gaither book. However, the theology was trash so I re-wrote it. About 30% comes from the original writing & I thought I should list my “idea-starter”. The reading speaks about important, intangible gifts — values & character that go so much farther than recreation and toys. Sadly, many young adults we encounter these days were never given these gifts. So, we thought it important to recall the high objectives of the parent. Enjoy and have a Happy Incarnation Day!
Gifts I Want to Give My Children at Christmas
I want to give my children the gift of solitude. I want for them to know the joy of silence; to know how to be alone and not feel uncomfortable. I want to make them restless with the artificial excesses of our culture and disenchanted with commercial distractions. I want them to pursue the quiet depths of God; to be still and know Him.
I want to give my children the gift of discernment. I want them to be seers. I long for them to grasp the meanings of things and decipher the subtleties of relationships, sermons, history, and nature. I also want them to be listeners. I look forward to the day when they can hear the cry of a person for help above the din of advertisement. I want to teach them to hear with Holy Spirit ears.
I want to give my children the gift of tears; to feel the pain that shatters the violated, to sense the emptiness of the deserted, to understand the weight of the confused, depressed, and lost. I would teach them to cry for the right things – for people who are locked away, broken, and trapped. I want them to cry for God, Who is the Desire of Nations and Lover of Men’s Souls but rejected by those same men again and again, every second of every minute of every day.
I want to give my children the gift of joy. I want them to dance! I would have them whirl to the rhythms of Heavenly blessing, embrace the lonely, sweep children into their arms, give wings to the elderly, and leap over the barriers of circumstances with humor and imagination and faith. I want them to live by the Divine axiom that declares, “You are always more happy when you give, than when you receive.”
I want to give my children the gift of gratitude. I would have them know where they have been, who brought them to where they are, and where they are going. I want them to arise in the morning with thanksgiving and sing a praise song upon their bed each evening. I would have them dwell on contentment – contented to live and breathe, contented to love and be loved, contented to have shelter and sustenance, contented to read God’s Word and pray above all other activity.
I want to give my children the gift of integrity. They must be truthful at any cost, bound by their word, make honest judgments even against themselves, be just, and have pure motives. I would have them realize that they’re accountable to God alone and then to His Bride – the Church. I want them to know that how they love and treat the Church is a reflection of what they think about God Himself. I want them to know what and where their hands and feet should do and go. I want them to know what their eyes should see, ears should hear, and mouths should say.
I want to give my children the gift of prayer. I want them to know that in the relationship with God there is much to be said – and He is the One who must say it. I would make them aware that prayer often has no words, but rather, a vulnerable access to God’s love, mercy, grace, and justice. I would have my children know that there’s nothing too insignificant to bring before our Great God. I would have them write down their prayers and then rejoice when they are answered. I want them to see how the God of Heaven is working in their world.
I want to give my children the gift of salvation. I want so badly to give my children the gift of holy salvation. I want them to have the confidence that transcends death and the peace that passes understanding. I long for them to explore the complexities of the greatest kindness toward mankind that God ever wrought and to rest in the simplicity of being a child of God. I want to see them come through the Cross, to our side, to Eternal Life.
But I can’t give that gift. I can’t buy it. I can’t wrap it. I can’t baptize it into them. And I can’t sign a religious document to get it. The gift has already been given. I can only lead the way. That gift is reserved to be given to my children by someone greater than myself. I can urge. I can plead. I can hope with all of my heart. But my children must want the greatest gift and turn away from all the fakes. Their hearts must turn to the Gift and that is the gift I want to receive from my children.
There’s a new search tool in town that can actually pay you to Google search. The tool is called Blingo. I thought this idea was really innovative and wanted to pass it along. There’s a search engine that’s powered by Google that gives away random prizes for using them to search. It plugs into IE & Firefox easily, brings Google results, and both you and your friends can win prizes just for using it.
Here’s my referral link to Blingo for you. Win us something people! Go!
On Sunday, the 18th, Sandy & I celebrated our 12th anniversary. We showed some of our pictures to our church congregation of our wedding. The response was obvious laughter — no problem there. The most repeated comment was, “How come only one of you has aged?” Ok, now that’s a problem! You don’t talk about my wife like that! HA.
Speaking as a privileged man — being married to this lady is just awesome. My pastor once told me, “Rob, the Lord smiled on you when He gave you Sandy.” I had to agree. But I never asked my pastor what the Lord was doing to Sandy when she gave me to her. I knew I couldn’t handle the answer to that.
God loves marriage. He created it. And Sandy is my life’s standard of beauty. “I Do” to this day.
On Sunday, we came home from church and is customary in our house we asked Reilly what his lesson was all about. We found out that it was about a couple going on vacation because they were going to a hotel. Now, there was room for the baby but not for the adults so they had to go stay in a barn. We asked Reilly, “What did they do in the barn?” He answered, “Oh, they just stand there, but God saved the animals.” As our hands were hitting our foreheads and our eyes were rolling to the sky we pressed further. “Reilly, was there a baby in the story?” “Oh yes, there was a baby” he said. “What was the baby’s name?” we asked — thinking we were back on track. “Goliath” came the reply. “He was a Goliath of a baby.” At this point, I looked at Sandy and said, “He’s your son! Now what?”
Well, we’re hoping to develop Reilly’s theological training and discipleship plan into something a bit more robust in the coming year. However, we know we have to get past today’s big birthday party that Reilly’s been talking about for months now. The day has finally come. Reilly is 5 years old. He defended that to his friend Iliana last night, “It’s not your birthday Iliana — it’s mine!”
For months we’ve asked Reilly how old he is going to be and he’d reply, “Seven.” We’d quickly say, “No, you’re going to be five.” He was determined that he was going to be seven and disdain five. So, we would finally ask him why he’s going to be seven and not five. To this, Reilly would reply, “Seven is happy and five is sad because five lost his parents.” Where are the manuals for this kind of stuff? Do we walk out of the room? Can you Google Search for an answer to this stuff? What do we do here? Well, we decided to take the slow, stealthy, repetitive, brain-washing approach — whisper in his ear for an hour while he’s sleeping at night. About 10 days ago, Reilly finally accepted that five comes after four and before seven.
Tonight is Reilly’s big birthday party. It’s inevitable. We’re doing this! We are committed to nothing else. Parents of 5-year-olds understand what we’re talking about — and Reilly still has his rich, red hair which gives him staying power. Tonight’s pinata — Spongebob Squarepants — and if the kids don’t do it — I’m going to beat that nerf-head into a candy-pizza.
One thing great about throwing a party in Italy — pizza is easy to get. In fact, the pizzeria insisted that they deliver to us because the pizzas would remain at the right temperature that way. This is a fact I didn’t know about. I guess it depends on who drives the car that the pizzas are ported in whether you receive optimum quality cheese, sauce, and bread — for 5-year-olds!
On a final note, my mom Linda turns a number with a five in it today too! Happy Birthday Mom! It may be a good thing you’re there in AZ because I don’t think Reilly in Italy will be giving you any ground this year to celebrate this one. Oh, and if you get a box of Kinder-eggs with surprises in them, it’s a case of MGI (mistaken-gift-identity)… our bad.
Today, our church went through a difficult pain. We had to say good-bye to one of our dearest couples & life-friends. The more dear the couple the greater the pain we have to go through to practice this ministry. By far, this couple is a rare treasure that when a church discovers them, that church will be adorned with a most splendid gem of Jesus. But this gem is not for sale. Churches can’t entertain them into their midst. No, the Lord will place this gem into the crown of His Bride as a treat to His under-shepherds and the warrior-like expansion of His Kingdom.
Our personal lives and ministry have been sustained, nurtured, and cared for over these last 3 years by Brad & Heather. We have learned so much about Jesus from them. And Brad is one of my heroes. It has been a privilege to work with this passionate, holy brother who has been what every pastor could only wish for in a deacon.
In the years ahead by God’s gracious will, brother Brad will become Pastor Brad and maybe his newborn son will follow in his steps. We are so excited to play a small role in this. Brad & Heather’s hearts are to continue to serve with our ministry in the future as he shortly finishes his career in the USAF.
We opened the service to the congregation to share how their lives have been impacted and changed by the Strables. It was precious to see the many tears, hear the praises to God, and to see the whole Body just recognize before God what a blessing they had received through this couple. Brad’s boss testified in church how his life has changed to become fruitful for Jesus. Italians testified of thanksgiving to them. Africans stood and shared how they have been blessed. And many more. What a healthy hardship it is for the Church to say good-bye to its most precious. Parents pass through this valley when their children come of age. Sandy and I are getting regular practice and giving “valley-tours” now.
