A Celebration Of Friends

Week 9--We can use many words to describe a group of things: a host of angels, a gaggle of geese, a pod of whales, a herd of sheep. This week, we had a  wonderful time of reflection and celebration with five friends and their families on five different nights--a "celebration of friends."

Each friend we visited was connected to one of the major work commitments in my (Bas) life: Medical Teams International, World Relief, and The Salvation Army Harbor Light Center. We had not seen some of these friends for more than 30 years.

In each case, we had a great time of sharing memories, laughing loudly at some of the crazy experiences we shared, remembering some of the amazing people who worked alongside us, and celebrating God's grace in our lives over the years.   

Each visit was a time of blessing and joy. In each visit, we experienced God's blessing and grace in new and fresh ways.

Our friends, Don and Ronna, live in Nyack, New York, in the same house in which Don grew up as a child. Don is the chief executive of a major social service agency in the community in which they live. He also serves on the city council. Ronna works for an international group that supports hospice programs in Romania, Serbia, and Moldova. She works from her home so that she can also care for her mother, who has Alzheimer’s. I worked with Don for many years while on staff with World Relief. He served as the director of one of our major refugee-camp programs overseas and then returned home to lead World Relief’s refugee-resettlement programs in the U.S. It was wonderful to be with Don and Ronna again. Over a great meal at a local Italian restaurant, we laughed loudly about some of amusing experiences we had shared together. We also talked about some of the pain and the frustrations that were a part of our work and recalled with joy how the Lord used our efforts to touch the lives of so many refugees over the years. Don and Ronna are special people. We had not seen them for more than 10 years but, when we sat down together, it was as if we had never been apart. They are wonderful friends who love the Lord and are doing what they can to serve Him in the community where they live.

Our friends, Todd and Hibst, live in Maryland with their two daughters, Emma and Eliana. Todd is an international public health specialist on the staff of Medical Teams International. Hibst is a nurse who grew up in Ethiopia and who came to Canada and then the U.S. Their two beautiful daughters speak Amharic (Hibst’s Ethiopian background) and Hebrew (Todd’s Jewish background) and are studying Mandarin. Todd became a Christian after recovering from a brutal car accident that left him as good as dead. A refugee from Ethiopia, Hibst faced major difficulties in obtaining legal U.S. residency. We prayed for her for many years. Finally and miraculously, the Lord intervened in the process. She now has legal U.S. residency. As a result, the entire family was able to return to Ethiopia to visit Hibst’s family, whom she had not seen for more than a decade. Hibst’s face shone with joy as she recalled her reunion with her 82- year-old father, her many siblings, and a host of cousins. Hibst is an outstanding cook who served us two wonderful dinners, one filled with African specialties. As we said good-bye to this wonderful family, we realized that we had been fed both physically and spiritually as result of our visit.

Our friends, David and Laura, live in a house they call “Point of View,” which aptly describes their home in the mountains above the Shenandoah Valley of West Virginia. From the deck of their home, they see the Shenandoah River winding through the valley far below. Each night, they can sit in two side-by-side claw-foot tubs on their deck and watch the sunset over the mountains on the other side of the valley. 

I first stayed with David and Laura when they lived in Swaziland in southern Africa. Laura had just joined our World Relief staff as a program specialist. David, who is from South Africa, was helping to administer a computer services and training company. In the years that passed, David also joined the staff of World Relief, eventually serving as the Africa regional director in our international program department. Later, both David and Laura moved to Oregon to work with Medical Teams International, where Laura served as our HIV/AIDS specialist and David was our vice president for administration. They moved back to West Virginia to care for Laura’s 98-year-old mother, who lives in northern Virginia. Laura and David are some of the few people who served with me both at World Relief and Medical Teams International. They are quality people who are warm, faith-filled, and passionate about serving the poor. They have lived full and rich lives in a wide variety of places and have always managed to make a warm and beautiful home wherever they have lived. We value our friendship with them and always are encouraged by the time we spend together.

Our friends, Ken and Martha June, live in Harrisonburg, Virginia, where they moved after Ken retired from his position as director of micro-enterprise programs at World Relief. I hired Ken when I was the vice president for international ministries with World Relief, one of my best decisions. A missionary who had served with the Mennonites in Bolivia, Ken had an outstanding understanding of micro-enterprise development. Under his leadership, we were able to establish micro-enterprise programs that are still serving hundreds of thousands of families in places like Rwanda, Burundi, Cambodia, Liberia, Haiti, Honduras, and Bangladesh. In some cases, like Cambodia and Rwanda, the loan funds that we established with about $100,000 now amount to hundreds of millions of dollars as a result of loan repayments and the investment of additional capital by other funders. 

On a personal level, Martha June had a tremendous impact on our our family. For more than six years, she served as Alisa’s tutor when Alisa was not able to attend school because of her illness. Every day, Martha June would come into our house with lesson plans, books, stories, and, sometimes, with treats. Often, Alisa was so tired she could not sit up, so Martha June got down on the floor with her. A trained teacher, Martha June was actually paid by the Wheaton School District to tutor Alisa. We don’t know what we would have done without her and are so grateful for her care for Alisa and her ministry to us. 

Today, Ken and Martha June live a few blocks from their daughter, son-in-law, and two active grandsons. They have volunteered as team leaders with Mennonite Disaster Services in the U.S. over the years and also volunteer at a local free clinic in Harrisonburg. They had the choice of six Mennonite churches in town when they moved to Harrisonburg because it is a center of Mennonite and Amish people. In fact, Eastern Mennonite University, one of the premier Mennonite universities, is located nearby. As a result, Ken and Martha June have connected with many retired Mennonites who share their missionary and humanitarian aid background and interests. Ken is also a talented cook who prepared a wonderful supper of barbecued chicken and homemade pumpkin pie followed by a breakfast of baked oatmeal the next morning. Even in retirement, these good friends continue to live out their Mennonite faith in humble and significant ways, inspiring us to do our best to follow their example in our own retirement.

Our friends, Jim and Brooke, live in Chesapeake, Virginia, where Jim serves as the director of a writing and analysis program for Regent University Law School. Brooke worked for the Christian Broadcasting Network for many years. Most of that time, she served as the executive producer of the 700 Club. 

After earning degrees at Wheaton College and Gordon Conwell Seminary, Jim joined our staff at The Salvation Army Harbor Light Center in Boston. He immediately faced a number of significant personal adjustments from the quiet life of north shore Boston to the harsh realities of urban street life and homelessness in Boston. Even today, 30 years later, Jim shakes his head at the wide variety of people and experiences he faced during his years at Harbor Light Center. There were times that he truly feared for his life. But, he faced each challenge with faith and with an amazing ability to talk to people. I found him to be incredibly dependable, very serious about his faith, willing to do whatever was needed to help us move forward with the work God had called us to do. 

Jim and Brooke met and married each other while Jim was on staff at the Harbor Light Center. Both were very active in a home fellowship that led them to move to Dorchester in the city. For a number of years, Jim continued to work in the field of alcoholism treatment. Then, miraculously, the Lord led him to law school and, a few years later, to a teaching position as a professor at Regent University Law School. It was amazing to hear their journey from Boston to Chesapeake—truly a God-led journey. Today, they have two adult children and one very cute, very loved 13-month-old grandson whom they see almost every day.

As we sat and talked with Jim and Brooke, in some ways it seemed like no time had passed at all. Almost immediately, we took up where we had left off in our relationship. At the same time, 30 years had passed—enough time to raise children, have careers, build new friendships. Our time together was too short. There was not enough time to talk about all that had happened and all that was happening. 

After five visits with these good friends in five days, we found ourselves overwhelmed with gratitude for the richness of the friendships we had made over the years. Even in cases where we had not seen each other for a long time, the friendships were still real and strong.

In every case, our friends have had significant careers that God has used to touch the lives of many, many people. In every case, they have had rich family experiences, sometimes marked with difficulty and challenges, but always marked by love and faith.

The number of friends we have in Oregon has been reduced these days because we are no longer directly involved in Medical Teams International, which was the focus of most of our relational activity for 17 years. But this trip has shown us that over the years, God has given us so many good friends in other places. 

We are truly blessed by our friends. For this we are immensely grateful.