Donating a table

After 13 years of enjoying our circular IKEA dining table we are replacing it with an oblong one.  This week we called a local charity called Besom which works with Social Services by providing household contents to needy people.  The organizer said he would collect it later that morning.  As he walked in he greeted me: 'Great to see you...is it fifty years since we were students together?'  I was dumbfounded.  Martin was a member of the student Baptist society in Cambridge University and even went on one of our summer missions to Dorking.  An engineer and inventor he worked in the north-east and then came back to work in Cambridge.

Did I remember him?  Yes, his voice and face triggered some happy recall. He told us he had married while a student and that his wife had come on the mission too.  In fact, when we were teamed up together to go door-knocking I was placed with his wife.  Apparently, I commented afterwards how wonderful it was to be partnered by her because she made such ready conversation with strangers.  Later, his wife came by to greet us.

We had no idea that donating a table to a good cause would open up a long-dormant relationship....this is the wonder of Christian life that you can keep bumping into people who have stayed the course of discipleship and in very different ways kept serving right through their lives.
Heaven will be like this!