Post flood

Acts 8:1-13

You may have seen the video of the great Ittre flood of three weeks ago.

This is my photograph. It is silent, there is no roar of raging torrents. You can hear those on the video. You cannot smell the damp mud of the next next from zither the photograph or the video, you had to be there.
Crises happen. There was persecution, the believers left their homes and fled. They went far afield and spread the good news of life with Jesus. Thus the world outside Jerusalem and Judea began to know that God loves them.
In the days following the flood many total strangers passed through our house, some coming for three days shovelling mud, washing floors and furniture, demolishing the kitchen, ripping up the floor, washing and packing crockery and glassware. Most were from the higher parts of Ittre but there were some from Nivelles and Braine le Comte. Still living with the noise of three dehumidifiers and without a kitchen is it is difficult to work out where God is going with this experience. I know my neighbours a lot more, I know the wonderful heart of many of the helpers, some of whom we did not see, there were the volunteer washer-women. I know the gentle caring of the red cross commune workers who daily inquired after our well-being. I know the sharing over delivered meals brought by a high and dry neighbour with a big heart and large saucepans. And I met a mother and daughter who came to help, the daughter having to be a tag-along just like I was, because her father too had died when she was little more than an infant.
God has a very complex jigsaw puzzle and it is amazing how the pieces fit together.