God Ordained Meeting

God Ordained Meeting- Donna and I like to take a few hours and travel through the small towns of Northwest Ohio and Northeast Indiana. Today was such a day. She had just finished up at her doctors appointment and the sun was shinning and the temperatures were in the mid sixties. I point the minivan in a southerly direction and soon we were south of a few familiar Ohio towns.


Following US127 we ended up in the quaint town of Bryan Ohio. I always keep an eye out for buildings with striking architecture and the city center building was exceptional. Red brick structures were the norm around here for more than a hundred and fifty years. The building was striking in its lines. The clock tower was simply awesome.


Driving past the city center Donna spotted her favorite building style as well. The sign on the front of the store advertised used clothing as part of a local churches ministry to the city. I drove right past it, which is what I usually do. However, this time I asked her if she would like me to turn the corner and come back. I didn't wait for the answer.


We were sitting in front of the second hand store and I was busy playing(working) on my small electronic magical invisible wave grabbing telephone, email machine, solitaire playing, search engine, fruit phone. About five minutes later, not much time in the world of second hand shops, Donna came out to the van with tears in her eyes.


That usually means she has just connected with someone just like her mom, or she was watching a little baby. Neither was true. She came  out to tell me that a lady in the store lived in Zambia. Her and her husband are missionaries and just happened to stop in the store.


A moment later her husband came out and introduced himself to me. Steve is his name. He is in his mid seventies, tanned and gray. For the next hour we shared stories and the miracle unfolded. He knew many of the same people that we knew and worked with. He was friends with a Zambian man who was our neighbor for close to a year. He experienced many of the same situations. He had malaria, more times than I did. He survived a bite from a Black Mamba.


They are currently raising their funds for their work by visiting supporting churches throughout Northern Ohio and Southern Michigan. His wife is a nurse and her current ministry is with orphans and widows in the Copper belt region of Zambia.


Now what are the chances of all of this happening by accident? We have met many folks from Africa, it is a big place, not many at all from the Texas sized country of Zambia, and never anybody that knew so many of the people we knew and worked with. Certainly it was a God Ordained Meeting.
We will stay in touch, in the real near future in fact. God didn't bring us together just to chat.