2009 is almost here! That means our first year of partnership development (a.k.a. supporting raising, deputation…) is coming to a close. We have visited at least 35 churches, shared our ministry with thousands of people, stayed in numerous homes and hotels, and put lots of miles on our van. Surely there are some good stories as a result!
Here are a few of our favorites:
There\’s A Hole In Your Shower
On one trip, friends of ours allowed us to stay in their home for a week while they were away. All went well until a few days before we were to leave. One of us(I won\’t mention which one!), while taking a shower, leaned up against the shower wall and promptly felt the tiles give way leaving a gaping hole! Uh, oh!! Of course we were royally embarrassed, but our friends were gracious and told us they had been meaning to replace that shower for quite some time. We just gave them a little incentive to get it done!
The Forgotten Dress Shirt
We were speaking at a missions conference and were staying with an older couple from the church. About 30 minutes before the Sunday morning service, Bart realized that he had forgotten to pack his dress shirt. Then he noticed several shirts hanging in the hallway. He proceeded to try one on. Just at that moment our host walked out of his bedroom to find Bart wearing his shirt! Bart, of course, explained his predicament and did end up finding a shirt of the right color and almost the right size for the day. No one at church noticed that underneath his suit coat, the sleeves only went just past his elbow and a button had popped off!
The Allens Don\’t Eat Lunch
After both growing up in very hospitable homes, it sometimes comes as a surprise to us that after speaking at a church far from home, often no one invites us to lunch. Now, it\’s not that we expect people to always feed us, but it is nice when we\’re in an unfamiliar town and church gets over at 12:30 to not have to worry about finding a place to eat. One Sunday morning after speaking in a church, an older lady came up and asked if anyone had invited us out for lunch. Maybe this Sunday would be different, we thought. Bart told her that we didn\’t have plans. To that she replied, “Well, good luck!” (We ended up finding a Perkins and eating lunch there!)
No Laptop? We\’ll Support You!
Out of all the churches we have visited, we have only forgotten our laptop one time. We didn\’t get to show our video, or pictures of tribal people or the power points we made to explain so well what we\’ll be doing in PNG. Guess what? That church now supports us!! We thought maybe we had hit upon a new support raising strategy — leave the laptop at home. We haven\’t been brave enough to try it again though!
In addition to these funny experiences, we have been blessed to meet many kind and caring people. We are so thankful for the opportunity to share with God\’s people a little more about reaching those yet unreached with the Gospel. And we\’re excited about what the Lord has for our family in 2009!
**Disclaimer – Any similarity in this article to anyone you might know is purely coincidental!