I saw a laundry line. The broken and repaired line was full of laundry, next to it was another box full of wet and clean laundry, waiting to get on the line. More laundry than someone can handle…
A young girl was wiping the floor carpet outside of the house. She turned out to be the mother of the toddler on the floor. Her mom was cleaning the table. A few kids running around, with a tiny thin young cat and a dog. Noises coming from inside of the house tell us that there were even more people inside. The mom, who turned out to be a kind of leader of the group offered us some coffee. “Please don’t fill it to the top,” Nina asked. The woman said “Of course not, what would I drink?”
That is clear language. We laughed and story time started.
I can’t wait to be able to understand Croatian, because now I could only follow what was translated for me. It touches me to see how important it is for the people to be recognized, to listen to their stories, to share some Scripture, pray and just be a friend of them. It was moving to hear one Roma woman praying for my friend. Serving the Redeemer of the world in all our brokenness. It is impressive to see how much work there is to be done here. And I understand why we felt paralyzed during the last year in the Netherlands, because we were working at such a distance. This is where we have to be, this is where we want to be.
Alas, at the moment I am only an observer, a visitor, and this was a little bit of what I saw. I once read in a poem that “the laundry line shows us a lot.” It shows who is ill, who is busy, and how many people there are. What does this laundry line tell me? More laundry than someone can handle…
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