Belongings

I'm sure our neighbors, Jessica and Rob, would appreciate your prayers. 

They were tent camping with their three daughters last weekend.  Everyone was having trouble sleeping Saturday night in the heat, so they eventually packed it in and headed home.  When they pulled up to their house Sunday at 4:00 AM, they discovered it was on fire!  Jessica says if they had been home overnight instead of camping, there very well could have been loss of life.  And if they hadn't returned from camping early, the house would have been nothing but ashes.

The structure will be salvagable, but between heat and smoke damage, most of their belongings are gone.

Heartbreaking!

We are sad that we were not here for them when it happened - we were leaving Miami Sunday morning and were far from home.  Yesterday (Thursday) was the first we had seen them since the fire - they have been living in a hotel. 

They caught us on a busy day: we are preparing to have a moving sale this Saturday and my brother Russ and his family (to be) were coming for dinner.  Even our kids were sorting through their toys and other belongings and starting to decide which items to sell.  (Our crazy plan is to have a sale tomorrow, rent our house out before the school year starts and move in with my mother-in-law ... all in an effort to pay off debts so that none will be outstanding when we enter the mission field in a year, God willing.)

Anyway, I was so proud of Hannah yesterday.  She surprised me in the afternoon by asking if she could sell her Nintendo DS.  She explained that she doesn't really play it all that much and doesn't need it.  The boys are firmly attached to theirs and, honestly, I hate those things because of their time and creativity-sapping tendencies, so I was more than happy to say, "Sure, sell it."

A couple of hours later, Jessica was over and showed Melissa around the fire-gutted house.  She said living in the hotel has been rough because there's so little to occupy the kids.  Then she mentioned that her oldest daughter, at 7, had recently received a DS for her birthday and that was one more thing lost to the fire.  Jessica sighed, "It sure would be handy to have that DS for a little entertainment at the hotel."  Melissa told Hannah and, without hesitation, Hannah said, "She can have my DS."  So she found a couple of games that would be appropriate for a 7 year old and gave them and the DS to Jessica!

I woke up early this morning and couldn't fall back to sleep because my thoughts were crowded with anxieties:  Will anybody show up for the moving sale with the heat like it is?  What will we do with stuff that doesn't sell?  What do we know about renting and leases and such?  How do we find a reliable renter?  How can all this happen before school starts up? 

So I got out of bed, made a cup of coffee and sat on the couch (which already has a price tag on it!) and stared at a picture on the wall ($5!) and thought, even if our plans fall through in places, I still want to lighten the load of belongings.  "Stuff" just clutters up our lives.  And if we store up treasures on earth, ultimately they will all be destroyed by moth and rust ... or fire!  And all that time and money spent chasing and storing up earthly treasures will have been squandered. 

Besides, I already have EVERYTHING - all the belongings I need.  I've been rereading this morning one of my favorite New Testament passages.  It's one of those where you just get the feeling there's some truly profound Truth that you have not been able to plumb completely yet, but you really, really, really want to live it as reality.  Know what I mean?  Here it is:

I Corinthians 3:18-23 (Emphasis mine)
Let no man deceive himself.  If any man among you thinks that he is wise in this age, let him become foolish that he may become wise.  For the wisdom of this world is foolishness before God.  For it is written, "He is the one who catches the wise in their craftiness"'; and again, "The Lord knows the reasonings of the wise, that they are useless."  So then let no one boast in men.  For ALL THINGS BELONG TO YOU, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or things present or things to come; ALL things BELONG to you, and YOU BELONG to Christ; and Christ BELONGS to God.



Price tags are going on.  We are also trying to sort out what things might go into long-term storage and what would be usefull in Haiti, so we have color-coded stickers.  I notice this morning that the picture in this photo  has a yellow sticker now ("for sale") but originally had a pink sticker ("long term storage").  I wonder what made Melissa change her mind ...