Love and serve
Small things done with great love can have huge consequences, Mother Theresa taught. We experience it in the neighbourhood where we live, Bloemhof in Rotterdam Zuid. There is a lot of loneliness, poverty and ugliness. Rubbish litters the streets, our youngest regularly sleeps in a different room because of noise pollution and weed smell. Pioneering is sometimes plodding.
In the midst of it, we want to 'love and serve', as the pioneer journey describes it. We pick up our 95-year-old neighbour off the floor when he has fallen yet again - and are given (in the heart of summer) a snow shovel as a gift of gratitude.
With a local resident whose partner had died, we organised a simple but dignified farewell gathering - as he was 'buried of the poor' and his friends were not allowed to attend the ceremony.
A while ago, we see a car in front of our house with its headlights on. No idea who the car belongs to, we can't do much about it. But the next morning, while walking dog Puck, we see the owner. 'That one won't start again.' Luckily for her, our car is next to it. Two jumper cables attached and yes, the engine is running like a lightning bolt again.
'Hallelujah, praise the Lord!" is her response. 'Hey how nice, are you a Christian?" we immediately ask her. And indeed, it turns out to be so. Nice, these little points of light in our dark neighbourhood!
This chance encounter got a special tailspin when we later discovered that we had helped ... the sister of the Cape Verdean hairdresser. About her barber shop, on our corner, we both had an identical dream (described in blog 1). We saw ourselves ín that space running a living room for the neighbourhood, with the hairdresser cutting her clients there.
A few weeks later, we sit with her on the sofa to share this dream. Her reaction surprises us. 'I love the idea. Actually, I wanted to quit the business. But my sister recently told me that I should ... talk to you guys. I objected: what would Hans and Carolien do with a barber shop? They have completely different jobs, don't they? And now you're sitting here. I'm in!
Like picking up the neighbour and organising a farewell moment, this connecting the jumper cables was a small thing, done with love. But for us and the hairdresser, it became something bigger. Through that one incident, we got a wonderful confirmation: you are on the right track. Move forward together. And that is exactly what we have been doing ever since, step by step.
Carolien and Hans Euser
network leaders, Intercultural Church Plants
