Rua Gustavo Cândido de Souza, Belo Horizonte, Brasil

The message arrived Sunday morning and I read it just after worship.  A note, an announcement from a friend in Brazil I first met 24 years ago this week.  He wrote:

Good morning, friend Bill.
How are you – everything okay?
And Becky, how is she doing?
I hope that everyone in your family is doing well.
I am writing to present the newest member of my family
She was born this morning! 7:58 a.m. our time.

The birth announcement included the newborn’s name along with a photo taken just a few hours after her birth.

Such joy.  But how do I tell the story of this joy?  The baby’s dad is a good friend.  A good friend in the ways that the best friendships are good, and good in the ways that some people are good. He is a good man.  And he is a faithful Christian.

I could tell this story as a “missions” story, and it would not be altogether wrong to do so.  When we first met 24 years ago at the beginning of a mission partnership between our American congregation and theirs in Brazil, my friend was a young husband, newly wed.  Over the course of the next few years Becky and I got to know this young man and his wife.  Over cups of tea and glasses of guarana we heard the stories of their lives, stories of abject poverty and lives surrounded by despair and crime.  But by the grace of God, they had rejected despair and crime and had begun the hard work of climbing out of poverty.  And, yes, the people of Park Presbyterian Church in Beaver, PA, offered a hand up rather than a handout.  In time, both our friend and his wife would earn college degrees. Becky and I were there at the graduations. They bought a car and made their way into the middle class of urban Brazil.  A first son was born and a second adopted.

A missions story. An international partnership at its best – friendships between Christians a world apart making a difference.

But we (and I have) cheapen such stories if they become only sermon illustrations or the prelude to a fundraising appeal.

In fact, my friend’s story is not a missions story. It is the story of a Christian’s life.

Along the way, before that college degree was earned, our friend’s father died.  His father had not been a good father, and our friend was called to the hard work of forgiving one who would never say “I’m sorry.” Then his good wife was diagnosed with breast cancer.  Treatment seemed to be successful, but shortly after the adoption of their second son, the cancer returned and there was not a successful treatment to be had.  Suddenly our friend was a father alone with two young sons to raise and great grief to carry.

This is not a mission story. It is the story of a Christian’s life.

About a year ago we received news that our friend had remarried.  His new wife, a wonderful woman he had met at church, also had two sons, a 13 and a 7-year-old who would join his 12 and 4-year-old.  Then this past Sunday, the news of a baby girl joining her brothers and mother and father in this faithful family.

Our friend’s story could be a mission story (the photo above was taken on the street where he and his first wife lived before cancer wreaked havoc in their lives).  Our friend lives in a place very different than ours, but their lives are not all that different.  Our friend’s story is not a missions story, however; it is the story of a Christian’s life, of joy and sorrow, of the grace of forgiveness and the call to hard forgiveness, of death and birth.  It is the story of faith and hope.  It is the story of having God’s love poured out upon us and human love surrounding us.  It is a story of God at work in and through his church.

A Christian’s life.