A couple of nights ago we came home and just before our house was a bus stuck. A woman laying in the grass.. the boy repairing the car and another woman.. We just said ” HI” and went inside.. Straight away the boy came to our house telling us something.. we replied with “Sorry, we only speak English” He rushed back with an Iphone or something, translated it and asked: ” I sell firewood, would you buy some?” We said: “No thank you… we don’t need it.. ” After that, the woman was asking for water and while I was getting it inside, Marijke started an conversation and found out that they had been in Toronto last year, close to Finch.. They couldn’t get a visa and had to go back to Hungary. We talked a little bit more, gave the bottle with fresh water and after that went inside..
Finch is the station in Toronto which we always used, where we walked, ran to catch the metro in the subway. Lived, have been! Finch is the station where Jelle picked up a little piece of newspaper in which he read that Roma where fleeing from Europe. That was were he felt an urge to be more involved in this whole issue. And now more than a year later. Many kilometers away from Finch station, we met these Roma. Just in our street. It is often the most plain things in live, what touched us the deepest. We are aware that there are many more levels in life than that we see of are aware off.
We feel so often hopelessness unable to do anything about this complicated situation. What we see in the villages, what we know that is happening behind the scenes. But in the midst of all of this I was reminded of Matth. 10. What a marvelous chapter when Jesus is sending his disciples. This chapter ends with: “And if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones because he is my disciple, I tell you the truth, he will certainly not lose his reward.”
Maybe just that bottle of water was enough for that moment.