Two Came.

Earlier this week we had a staff conference, all the teachers from Christian schools got together for a day of inspiration and professional development. The speaker this year was incredible! His name was Michael Frost. If you ever get the chance to hear him speak, you should.

I was challenged by a lot of the things he said. He spoke about mission and evangelism being the calling of the church "to go". There is so much need in our world and what am I doing about it? It's so easy to get comfortable in our worlds and not see the pain around us.

While I was at the conference I realised that I have lived in my house for the past 5 years and know only a few of my neighbours. So when I got home my flatmate and I hatched a plan to invite our closest (in location) 12 neighbour families over for dessert tonight. We made postcard invites and popped them in letterboxes... yes I know this isn't as effective as real-life asking, but time was limited... next time this will be our plan.

So tonight we prepared crepes, ice-cream, mini pavlovas, penguin shaped waffles, tim tams, lamingtons & fruit salads for our anticipated guests. The time came...and went. No-one showed. An hour later Little Jill and I texted/posted urgent facebook messages to our friends to help us eat all of this dessert.  But right at that moment two boys I had never met before knocked on our door.

C & D were about 13 and 15 and live across the road and up a bit. I think we probably overwhelmed them with dessert options. They stayed for a little over an hour and we had the best time getting to know them. I was amazed at how much C shared with us! He told us about recent suicides at his school, how he and his brother run away from home, how he had a liver transplant when he was five (at this point little Jill said "so were you only born with one liver?"), he told us about his father's injuries and his mother's stresses.

Such a great reminder that we all have a story to tell & just wants someone to listen. There is real need right outside my door. I loved having the opportunity to just listen to the heart of a stranger. Even if the stranger was a 13 year old... usually teenagers scare me a little bit & I could never be a high school teacher, but thess kids were sweet.

Anyway, on some levels our evening could be considered a flop, 12 invites were sent out - with a potential of almost 50 people. Instead 2 came. But it was a divinely appointed evening. Such an amazing opportunity.

And the 'PE Boys' will be happy at recess tomorrow when I feed them left over waffles and tim tams :)