Happy Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day! I had BIG plans...but, unfortunately, I got sick. I'm hoping it's only a 24 hour kind of bug, but I'm still feeling pretty "pewny" (as they say in the South!). I'll write more when I feel better, but I wanted to share this beautiful email that was sent to me today. This is from Sandra, a lady I met at the airport one week ago. My ordinary heart overflows with the extraordinary ways God appears and shows His love!!!




Lin and Gary,
Last weekend I went to Chicago to visit Dan and Annie. On the return trip my flight was scheduled to have a layover in Houston. While waiting to board the plane in Chicago, I began talking to a lovely woman sitting next to me.While we waited in line to board we continued our conversation and she told me that she had lived in Biloxi before Katrina and that she and her husband were now in Houston. She explained that they had lost everything in Katrina and after a few months her husband had gone on to Houston to find work and she had remained in the Biloxi area for her daughter to finish her senior year of high school with her friends. I mentioned that I was from Vicksburg and she immediately asked did I by chance know a dentist named Gary . . . and before she could say the last name I finished with Cheslek. The connection was so very special to both of us. It was plain to both of us that the two of you have touched so any lives. Joyce said that she had been a grade school friend of yours and that all three of you went to high school together. She asked that I give you her new email address - that ya'll had lost contact after her family had moved.
Thanks to both of you for all of the love you have shared with so many.
Love in Christ,
Sandy Berry

Lin and I grew up together in Grand Rapids. She and her husband are the only people that I know that live in Vicksburg, MS. So there I was, standing in line next to a woman from MS., in an airport in Chicago! And she knows Lin and her husband! Lin and Gary moved down there to work with Dr. Boelens. Dr. Boelens worked for years in the Delta of Mississippi and served the poorest of the poor. He opened several clinics in order for these people to receive necessary medical as well as spiritual and emotional care. It's quite a moving story.

That was my early Valentine's Day gift from God!