Our son Houdin is at discipleship training in Pennsylvania to prepare for his eight-month trip to Guinea Bissau, Africa in December. We spent the weekend with him at the discipleship center located in the middle of an impoverished neighborhood. He introduced us to some of the neighborhood kids who come to do gymnastics and play soccer in their big yard. We walked the streets to some of the local take-out places, passing condemned houses, broken glass and half-full bottles wrapped in brown paper laying on the sidewalks.
On Sunday morning, we stepped through the big red doors of a small Baptist church in the neighborhood. Our family of six plus Grace doubled the size of the congregation--beautiful black women in cream dresses and Sunday hats with huge matching bows; ushers standing at the door, all of them female, black-suited and white-gloved and serious about their posts; a gorgeous young woman and her squeezable baby seated alone in a pew; two men in the front row, one older, one younger, sharing their testimonies, thanking God for another chance to thank God; a man in an electric wheelchair seated in the back whose cell phone went off just before Communion, and the choir of three, two vocalists and one pianist, belting out more sound than our whole home congregation does on a Sunday morning. And there we were, being embraced warmly, welcomed. During one song, when the congregants were shouting out, "That's RIGHT!" and "Mmmhmmm!" and "You TELL it!", Sweetheart leaned over to me and said, with delighted wide-eyes, "WE should come to a church like THIS!"
And then, before the service started in earnest, all of the children were called to the front, everyone under 19, and all hands were joined, a circle formed, while the preacher kept the weekly tradition of praying for the children. Only a handful there, including that huggable baby dressed in pink and chocolate brown, and I wondered where the youth were, the ones who play soccer and do gymnastics in the yard of the discipleship center, and the ones who leave their bottles laying on the sidewalk, and I wondered how they could get them in here to pray for them every Sunday morning. How we could get them in there. How it happens that a Baptist church within walking distance of everywhere in that neighborhood is overflowing with women and just dotted with men.
It came time for greetings, and we were absolutely folded into the arms of every person there, literally embraced and welcomed, every single one of us. And The Baby, who had never been to a Baptist church and last year vehemently discouraged us from having Rejoice in our home because he was black, was enveloped by the women in the cream dresses and hats and matching bows and the bold singers and the large preacher and the woman with the baby and the men in the front row. All of us were.
And we sang, too. We SANG. I don't mean we just stood and politely followed along with the hymnal. I mean we SANG. Loudly and joyfully and beautifully, with hands raised and tears on cheeks and confidence in our voices.
After the singing, and the preaching, and the hugging, and the Communion, we filed out of our pews, nodding and smiling, but I had to just have one more hug. I'd been eyeing that baby all morning long, so I asked the mom if I could hold her for a minute. Taking that chubby little girl into my arms, I was so overwhelmed with love. I kissed her beautiful head and kissed her soft, chubby cheeks, and teased the mom that I was just going to be off now, with that baby in my arms. What a blessed baby she is, that one, to have a church family like that, to have a mom who dresses her in chocolate and pink and takes her through those big red doors for huge helpings of love.
