dinner with Jesus

Thursday night, we had the priviledge to join a dear friend, we'll call him Luke, and his family in their home to celebrate his 25th birthday. He had invited us to dinner, and I promised to bring desert. At 4 o'clock, Matt and I headed off on foot with a still warm chocolate cake (thank you, Aunt Patty!). Luke always jokes about living right behind the compound wall, and he truly does. Because the wall is so big, it still took us about 25 minutes to get there.

Luke is the dean of men at our seminary, and he has quickly become a good friend. He is studying to receive his Master's degree online, he teaches at the school, translates and is a pastor. As much time as we have spent with him, it has always been in a school context, or at our home.

As we came into his yard, there was a traditional "woven-walled" hut that is their kitchen. Nailed to the side of this hut is a huge piece of plywood, once painted gray. It was filled with Math problems and French, and his brother stood stictly surveying a gathering of half-naked village children, directing them through lesson after lesson. Suddenly, we saw Luke, our scholar friend, in a different light. It was on this plywwood, standing in the dirt, that he had learned his English, his physics, his chemistry. He was born in that place, right where the hut stands today.

His home is right next to the hut, a small mud house, full of much laughter, obvious love, and very little else. On the hill right above them they have begun to build a new house...one that has 4 whole rooms. They've been working on it for three years now. Most of the walls have been started, but it is still far from completed. "Little by little," Luke told us. "When we have some money, we buy some block, and it's coming."

Dinner, however, was the highlight. We filed around a small table with his parents, brother and sister and a few neighbors. When we sat down, I was concerned about our many differences, and how we would fill the meal with conversation. However, as we prayed together, those differences truly seemed to evaporate. We finished praising the Lord for dear brothers and sisters and then sang a hearty "Happy Birthday." We ate beans and rice, beets and onions and plantain chips. We all shared a specially purchased Coca-Cola, and laughter and chatter quickly filled the dark home. We talked of snow, of women and pants, of travel and the United States, of their lives, of our families, on and on. We all teased Luke about his many admirers and about his phone, which routinely rings off the hook.

At the end of the meal, his father gravely silenced his family and announced what a blessing it was to their family that we had come (and how much he had loved the cake.) He then officially asked Matt and I if we would join them again for his birthday in April. They were so obviously blessed that we had come and we were so incredibly blessed that they had had us and fed us that the evening ended with many exchanges of true gratitude, a family photo, and talks of the next party our families will have together.

I wish we could have taken you there tonight. I wish you could have sat, in broken-off desk chairs, around that table with us and seen Jesus like we did tonight. I wish you could have felt the weight of your tenth of Coke, the honor of being given one of the only two plates, wish you could have felt the love that resides there. They have NOTHING in life to bring them joy aside from each other and the Lord, and they each carried joy abundant.

As we returned to our monstorous home, that this morning had felt too small, we praise the Lord...not for the stuff that we have, but for the HIM that we have, and the brothers and sisters that remind us that this is ALL that we need.