They Will Know We Are Christians by Our Love
One of the presenters at this year’s Care and Kindness Conference, Judy Gustum, spoke of ways that we can give testimony to our
being followers of Jesus through the actions that we take.
We were pleased to receive the following note, telling that one of the men at the Conference has indeed taken action. Anno Van Streun, from
Ureterp, Netherlands, has attended the annual Kindness Conference several different years and he
demonstrates in his note that Care and Kindness can indeed change the world for good. — Editor
I am an elder in the church of our village with a population of 3000 people. Last December 2005, the only son of our neighbors (21 years) died in a tragic traffic accident. Hundreds of young people and dozens of friends attended the funeral service in our church. As their elder, I assisted in the service and kept visiting them in the days and weeks after that. The parents run the only flower shop in the village and I discovered that in the weeks after the young man’s death, in December (normally the busiest weeks of the year), it was very quiet in the shop. “Yes,” the lady answered, “It’s indeed less than half as busy as normal.”
I talked with a lot of her regular customers and they admitted they were buying their flowers elsewhere. Several said: “It’s so terrible what the parents experienced. It’s too difficult to come and chat about flowers or show them my sympathy.” Obviously half of their customers, a lot of church members, were reluctant to come in their shop.
My Action Plan: Two weeks before Christmas, I sent an email to all 40 members of the board of our church explaining the situation. I could understand the emotional barriers of those customers, but I asked the board members (Elders and Deacons) to activate the members of our church to do something about the isolation and lack of business our neighbors experienced. The board members were shocked. They didn’t realize that so many people, like themselves, were reluctant to visit the flower shop.
The Board members were moved to help. They reached out to the members of the church, explained the situation, and asked them to support the shopkeepers in these difficult times.
The last week before Christmas (the top week of the year) business became normal and the regular customers are back.
I learned that even caring people, shocked by a horrific tragedy, can shy away from suffering persons, although they are praying for them. Caring must lead into action. The suffering person has to experience love, care and kindness. I’m not sure I would have taken action and become the owner of the problem if I had not attended the Care and Kindness Conference.
