Inn for a Penny

"Well, in for a penny, in for a pound!" Bubba told us last year when caring for visiting professors while I battled with work, a 2-year-old, being 8 months pregnant and keeping on top of it all.

I pictured this pair of weight gain and financial gain, totally in the dark about what he meant.  It wasn't the last proverb we've learned from John and Dorothy!  


What we DID get was that Dodo and Bubba were all about doing whatever they could to help us, which in the end was a thousand little things every day.

Coming to Haiti for 6 weeks to help may not seem like a big thing, but leaving Canada, traveling to Haiti, outfitting a house, making beds, cooking meals, doing dishes, making airport runs, buying groceries, mopping and sweeping, battling the heat, helping with Lily and Sofie, etc...are a lot of little things that made what Dodo and Bubba did for us a BIG thing.  

For four semesters, they faithfully helped us do ALL those things and more, and when we got back from Ft. Lauderdale on Saturday, they were gone.  Our house was full of gifts of lots of little things that are BIG blessings...frozen cheese, lamps, Ziplocs, spices and even laundry detergent with Febreeze (ahhh, luxury!).  


It's one thing to ask someone what you can do to help.  But when they respond, "Come to Haiti, live with us for 6 weeks every semester, and take care of all the physical needs of total strangers, sometimes totally 10 or 12 at a time, with very limited resources available to you"...that's when you right-mindedly say, "Uh, no thanks, but I'll be praying!"  

When John and Dorothy said yes, we were shocked, and as their 24th week of service finished last week, we were (are) just totally overwhelmed with gratefulness!  


From offering a cup of cool water to strangers, to washing their dirty clothes, from preparing a feast that a toddler manages to mostly squash into the tile floor to feeding and caring for an ornery dog not their own...Dodo and Bubba ran "The Penny Inn" like our Lord Jesus...like servants.


Much of it was done just out of their love for Matt and I and for the girls who adore them, and man, we will always be touched deeply by that greatest showing of love, laying their lives down on our behalf!

What an example!  


I hope and pray that God is able to use Matt's and my "retirement" one day for His glory in a similarly powerful way!


THANK YOU, Dodo and Bubba!  We love you!


Meanwhile, Sam, Cammie, Gideon, Azariah and Abigail move in on Tuesday morning, another great thing done out of someone's love for God and for us...we are blessed!  Lily can't wait to have more friends next door, though she has told me several times that she "might be a little bit shy, like God made me, ok?" and we can't wait to have the help, not only physically, but all of the help that living in community as His body provides!  

Please pray with us for both of these dear families and the transitions they are now in!