A Great and Marvelous Work - God's Kingdom

When we want to be a part of the Great and Marvelous Work that is about to come forth, we need to deal with the little things. We are a small movement. We cannot solve the huge problems of the world. But we can solve the little ones…and they add up. If everyone of our church members would pick a project…like my husband Bob did, for example, we could together make a huge difference.

Four years ago, after an enormous flood here in our hometown, he helped form an organization called PINCH (people for institutional and community harmony) to help the black community integrate into the rest of the community. This had been a very prejudiced community before the civil rights act was passed and the black folk in this community really didn’t want to deal with trying to overcome the deep seated prejudice found here. So they kept to themselves.

The flood changed all that. Since the flood waters were covered with oil and then raw sewage from another small flooded community just north of us, FEMA and the refinery bought out that end of town and tore down 245 badly polluted homes. That forced long overdue integration. Bob had lived next door to black folks as a child and had no built in prejudices. He said it was hard to distrust or dislike someone that you ate dinner with. So he instituted a community wide pot luck dinner. The first one brought 109 people together and from there it has grown. Several black friends came to Bob’s Celebration of Life in June after he died of a very aggressive cancer. They spoke of his interest in the ENTIRE community and what a fine man he was. I was very pleased to see those fine folk there to help our family celebrate Bob’s life.

We can all do something. We don’t have to move mountains..there are plenty of hills that we can tackle.