more about yourself. I feel we get to know our ministers through their sermons, but now that we have you here, we can hear you tell us about yourself informally too.”
“I am Edmund,” I said, a little embarrassed. “I work as a manager at a big chain superstore. I’m almost thirty-three, not very tall, brown-haired and brown-eyed and I have been a speaker of the Word for a little over two years now.”
“Tell us about your family,” Maddie prompted. She had been getting the coffee ready and now brought it to the table and began pouring everyone a cup.
“I am an only child. My mother lives about three hours away in a nursing home, and my dad passed away about ten years ago. My parents were married late in life.”
“Is that what you’re going to do? Get married late in life?” Freddie’s question was playful. I looked over at Shelly. I could tell she was pondering what we had been discussing. But what were her thoughts?
I gave Freddie a quick half-grin. “You never know. Whatever is meant. But I have some questions now for you about the area.” I began to ask them about what problems I might encounter. Mr. Bonn told me that from his perspective there seemed to be problems that were as old as Adam, teenager troubles, marriage difficulties, bullying, overzealous watchfulness of others, gossiping, love of the world, and the like. We adults moved to the sitting area with our coffee and I asked Mr. Bonn if he thought that people would be coming to me desiring to visit or if I would be better off reaching out first. Mr. Bonn thought a while, then he told me of a few families and individuals who he thought might really need a visitor, but might not be bold enough to ask. I got out my little notebook and wrote down the names. They were shut-ins and parents with children who had lost faith, for the most part. I thanked Mr. Bonn and we discussed the Bible more. He seemed genuinely curious about some very obscure passages and it was all I could do to keep up with him. And here at first I had thought he was unhappy with Maddie’s bringing up Bible texts for discussion! He and I went through a few cups of coffee between us. Freddie and Shelly listened in and offered a few comments here and there but Mr. Bonn was the one who kept me on my toes. I vowed to read the Bible more, thinking, now this is good for me to be put to these questions and to be forced to think so much about the Word of God. For some reason, God is allowing this to be how my afternoon is going.
Finally Mr. Bonn laughed and looked at the clock, surprised as I was to see how late it had gotten. Freddie, Maddie, Shelly and I went outside and played volleyball for an hour. They had a net set up out back. A few more single people came over and we played with a bigger group. Then someone built a bonfire and we sat around it singing songs until late into the night. When almost everyone had left I sat on a log staring into the flames. Shelly came and sat next to me, watching the sparks fly upward. I threw twigs onto the fire and observed how they caught flame. Shelly handed me a cup of coffee. What was this, my sixth cup? I took it anyway. “Did you have a good day?” she asked me.
“I did,” I said. “You are very blessed in your family.”
“I am,” she said as we watched the orange and red colors of the fire playing in the darkness. It was early in the year so there were only a few bugs. Freddie was sawing logs on a tree over on the edge of the clearing in which the bonfire had been built. Shelly said, “I want to ask you about something serious.” Then she told me about her sister Maddie, who had just broken an engagement with a young man. I asked her what I might do to help and she said to just be extra patient with Maddie. She said she herself tried to go out of her way to include Maddie.
“Like tonight,” she said. “Maddie stayed the whole time and visited. She didn’t seem depressed at all.”
“That’s good,” I said.
“She’s better than she was when I got home from Germany,” Shelly went on, looking at the fire sparks flying upwards.
“You were in Germany?”
“Yes, to study.”
“Really?”
“Yes, Luther’s Bible, for example.”
“That’s neat.” I looked at the firelight making her hair shine and waited for her to go on.
“Did you know in Romans where it says, ‘He is the propitiation for our sins,’ in Luther’s translation it says, ‘He is the mercy-seat for our sins.’”
“Oh, that’s better,” I said. “‘Propitiation’ is a hard word.”
“Yes, but do people all know what the mercy-seat is?” she asked.
I contemplated her. “I guess I never thought it could be possible not to know what the mercy-seat is, the throne of grace.”
“Yes, that’s true, we sing about it so often.”
Then we began talking about how easy it was to get down or depressed and how we need to help each other out. The fire died down and we were still talking. Through Shelly that night I learned about most of the people around our age. I asked many questions and wrote down names to help me remember. Shelly had lived here her whole life and she was a nurse at the local clinic so she saw many people every day in her job. I asked her about those who weren’t in faith—were there any that she thought might need me to reach out to them. She couldn’t think of anyone specific; she only encouraged me to freely invite people to services whenever the chance came.
When the fire was almost completely gone out I got up and stretched. Only Freddie was left outside; he was cleaning up the fire pit area. We greeted each other goodnight and I apologized for staying so late. “I know myself well enough to know that it is going to happen again,” I told him.
“You’re welcome any time,” he responded.
That’s how God made me, I thought, as I got into my car and drove home. And now I had a huge congregation and a whole new neighborhood, plus people at my work place and other places in the community. I would meet them all, I vowed. I thought of Paul’s words, “I have become all things to all people that I might win some.”
Chapter Three
The next day, Monday, when I got home from work I began planting another garden out back. The one I had planted the day I first moved in seemed too small after I weeded it. It was a little late in the season to start another garden but I cleared a spot and hoed it out so I would have it ready for the next year. I stood surveying my work, trying to decide what to do with the fresh empty soil in front of me. Then, my hands all stained with dirt, I pulled my notebook out of my shirt pocket. Who to call? I debated texting Shelly to ask if there was a bonfire somewhere. Tomorrow I was going to Janet’s but tonight maybe there were some elders who would enjoy a visitor. My eyes fell on the name Czernak. It was on the bottom of the first page of my list. I wondered if Heidi had mentioned them or if it had been Mr. Bonn. Who were they, though? I went inside and looked them up by name, number, and city. I called the number. A child answered.
“Are your folks home?”
“Sure, here’s my mom.”
I could hear a woman shouting at someone about some cats. Then her voice came on the phone, short of breath and suspicious, “Hello, who is this?”
“Hi. I am Edmund, a new pastor in town. I was hoping to get to know people in the area and wondered if you would mind if I came to
