Hideaway

We spent an evening last week with our friends Bill and Deanne.  We thoroughly enjoyed their hospitality and the delicious meal they served us and our friend Sue.

I wore my tennis shoes, just to be safe.  Once when Sue and I were at Deanne's for lunch, she wouldn't let us eat until we'd taken a walk.  She drove us to one of the steepest hills in Marysville and marched us to the top, then, partway down, she turned us around started up again!  And I had come thinking we were going to eat.  Silly me!

Bill and Deanne are a remarkable couple who have traveled to several Youth with a Mission (YWAM) sites to serve as volunteers.  Their most recent trip saw them in Mexico, serving in an orphanage and doing whatever they were asked, whether serving food or crawling on their hands and knees to pick up nuts that had fallen from the trees.

Between mission trips Bill kept himself busy by building a hermitage in their backyard -- a hideaway to spend quiet time for reading, prayer, and contemplation.  They've added an upstairs so that the grandkids have a space of their own when the come to visit.

When Deanne called to invite us I asked how the building project was coming.  "It's finished," she said.  "I'm afraid you might covet it."  She was right!  When I saw the hermitage I was tempted to covet it.  But who could begrudge such a lovely couple a place to come in quietness into the presence of the Lord?