By taking some back routes somehow we found ourselves right there with those two hours to kill.
She got to show off her favorite spot in town, named, simply, Chocolate.
And the food! A chicken bacon sandwich sounds humble but even the refrigerated leftovers were achingly good hours later. Those people know how to cook.
And when we humans make choices we sometimes make wrong ones, and so the need for faith, repentance and renewal, with baptism to start the process. And he had chosen to be baptized.
He’s also a fairly shy kid. When we got there, he was seated by himself a moment so I sat down on the floor so as to be looking up at him. This was his day and I wanted him to have that viewpoint of being the tall one–a rare thing when you’re a kid.
Just then his three-year-old cousin and her parents came in at the other end of the long room, and as her daddy told me later, she cried in delight, “That’s my FRIEND!” as she bolted towards me, jumped into my lap and flung herself into my arms and wrapped her own as far around me as she could reach in the biggest hug you could ever hope for.
I felt about ten feet tall. That moment will carry me through a whole lot to come.
It’s all about being there for each another.
And a little child led the way.