It's a small world after all

I remember when I was in first grade my family went to Disney World. We rode this ride in a little car (that I got to “drive”) that took us down this path with the continuous, repeating lyrics of “It’s a small world after all…” I’ve heard the older you get, the smaller the world gets. I’m beginning to find that already with people I meet, but instead of being like that nuisance of a song, it’s been a real comfort and blessing.

Yesterday, two men stopped by. One of them was them was from Outreach International, one of Lifeline’s food suppliers of the food that we feed our children in our schools and nutrition programs and distribute to other missions. The other man with him named Roger Elmore works at Iowa State University as an Extension Corn Agronomist. As soon as I saw his polo with ISU on the side, we began talking since we were from the same neck of the woods. I said I graduated from Northwestern College, to which he responded that he knew people that went to school there. Come to find out, he knew four people that went to school at NWC because they were family friends from his home church. The first girl he mentioned was Stephanie Powell! I was shocked! Steph graduated a year ahead of me, but I actually met her before NWC because we did New Way Singers (a summer choir tour group for high school students) together for three years through Nebraska Christian College. He used to live in Nebraska and went to the same church as Steph (and a couple other girls I met through New Way Singers) and he and his wife were really good friends with her parents. It was crazy to meet this wonderful man of God in Haiti of all places.

Last night, four Haitians stayed with us here because one of the men, Pastor Mioche Rock, has a mission in northern Haiti but receives food from Lifeline to feed children in his programs. Pastor Rock attended Crossroads Christian College for four years and was very good friends with Nichole (Howells) who grew up in my home church. Nichole was someone I always looked up to and admired. It was crazy to meet this man I had heard about from Nichole before, in Haiti of all places.

It’s a small world after all, but how comforting it is to know God makes our worlds smaller, maybe so that we can be encouraged by those in it that we’re privileged to meet.