The Gathering - A Special Weekend

3 years...one email a week. This is our marketing plan. I hesitate even saying that. The idea of Christianity and marketing in the same sentence makes me nauseous. Over time our email list has grown for our "Gatherings". Some people come over on Saturday weekly, some monthly, and some only on special occasions.

I abused our email list last week. Yep, I strained and sent out two. Here's what happened...

My sister and her husband Danny are stationed in Norfolk, VA. Two weeks ago, Danny was serving on his 4th tour in Iraq when he was made aware that his father in WY. suffered a massive heart attack. After fighting to get home, he and my sister were able to make it out and see him before he died.

Friday and Saturday would be the last days Kari and Danny would spend here. After a week of funerals, obligations, grieving, I had this sense that they needed to spend Friday with us and just wind down. I told them to come over, that I'd call a few friends and we'd play some cards.

Subsequently, I turned around and emailed my community. I briefly relayed the situation and told them we would be hanging on Friday in addition to our normal "Gathering" on Saturday.

Friday evening arrives and our community, friends, and neighbors show up in droves. 25+ people on a days notice bring food, drinks, and children....Awesome!

We're about half way through the evening, all sitting around the card table, and my neighbor, Joe, who gathers with us regularly stands up.
He says, "I don't know if this is out of place or not, but on behalf of all of us, Danny, we are so sorry for your loss. We don't know why these things happen, maybe so you can be out of Iraq and here with us, we just don't know." He proceeded to raise his glass, and simply said, "A toast to your Dad's life."

We briefly offered our condolences, and Danny, a very non emotional guy, glances at me. I soberly whispered, "Welcome home, Danny." What I meant by that, and I think it echoed the look on his face, "Welcome to our community."

We went well into the early morning hours. A neighbor I haven't seen since December, gave me a hug and said, "Man, you don't know how bad I needed this." (Now a new member of our email list)

The funny thing is, we only had about 6 at our "Official Saturday Gathering". I think the title of the lesson was "Because We Need Each Other." Apparently, most of us already learned that lesson the night before....

-Jeff