My friend is in her 70’s, but her enthusiasm for life is inspiring.  She planted 300 tomato plants again this Spring.  If the preceding years are any indication, she and her husband will harvest and sell 6,000 pounds of tomatoes from their home on a busy two lane road in rural Oregon.

But entrepreneurship isn’t her only claim to fame.  She serves with vigor at her church making sure there are cookies and coffee every Sunday for 1,000 people.  Yet, she makes time for strangers and those in need of encouragement.  It was she and her husband who first greeted us when we were newcomers to their church.  They welcomed us as if we were important to them and asked us to come to a class they attended and sit with them.  Who could turn her down?  Every Sunday her husband made time to pull out his phone and show me photos of their gardens, knowing I was a frustrated gardener without one tilled square foot to plant.  There was nothing I had to offer, but he took an interest in me and made it a point to connect every Sunday.

As if they didn’t have enough to do with canning season in full swing, they invited us to dinner at their house.  How I enjoyed the long awaited tour of their manicured gardens!  But even more, we enjoyed the story telling after dinner.   Another family who we have become especially close with had been invited.  As we all sat around the big table and listened to old and new real life stories, even the youngest guest listened intently.  My friend’s husband sitting at the head of the long table told a moving story about his nieces’ wrenching departure from her lifelong church and her subsequent finding of a new church home at our church where she loved hearing sermons from the Bible.  Listening to the happy conclusion of the story, the eight-year-old guest piped up and added,  “And afterwards, there’s cookies!”  The merry laughter that followed spilled out of full hearts.

The second story was from long ago when my friend was a girl.  Her mother had gone to a Billy Graham crusade and heard about Jesus.  Her heart was tender and she decided to follow Christ.  In spite of her husband’s derisive remarks, she began taking her two children to church.  My friend remembers her dad sitting on the lawn with a beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other on Sunday mornings mocking them as they returned from church.  Her mother had to hide her prized Bible and read it when he was at work.

But things suddenly changed the day her dad went to a Judy Garland movie in which she sang “When the Saints Go Marchin’ In.”  In the middle of that movie, the words of the song hit him.  He wasn’t going to be marchin’ in because he wasn’t one of that number.  He left the movie theater and hurried straight to his wife’s church.  The deacons who were meeting that night were shocked when the previously antagonistic man barged into their midst and declared that he wanted to be saved. Rushing straight to the alter, he gave his life to Christ.  He earned the title Preacher Paul at work because he was so enthusiastic in his faith, pleading with anyone who would listen to trust Jesus.

The drunken card parties at his house ended.  Instead, he began to look for ways to better his family’s life.  An opportunity came for him to move his wife and two children from their rented run-down house that couldn’t be properly heated to a newer, better house.  He began raising tomatoes in the new backyard to supplement their income.  My friend remembers that she loved to help him as a child.  Now, in her seventies, she is carrying on the family tradition of raising tomatoes and loving Jesus.

But she has raised more than tomatoes.  She and her husband have raised two sons- one is the pastor of our church and the other is one of the worship music leaders.  Watching her boys on Sunday morning pouring out their hearts to lead us, I see the humility of their grandfather who was humble enough to admit he wasn’t a saint going marchin’ in.