“God is Good”

Dear WRC,

I’m about to head off on paternity leave any day now—and I’m sure the cover of this Bellringer will have already announced the arrival of our son—but before I do there’s a story I need to tell you.

This summer one of the projects we’ve been working on has been to install mini-split AC units in our classrooms. The Property Committee and Nursery School board worked hard to get everything in place and the work finally took place last week. Everything is now installed and working great, which meant we were finally free to remove the old window air conditioners that have been working hard to keep those rooms comfortable. And that created another problem: what to do with 6 window air conditioners? 

There’s a way to recycle them through the township and occasionally there are programs through utility companies to turn them in for a rebate. After all the work getting the project in the classrooms to the finish line my inclination was to dispose of them as quickly and simply as possible to just be done with it. Fortunately or unfortunately, my mother passed along just enough of her mother’s Depression-era mindset that I couldn’t quite stomach just turning these in to be scrapped—they still work! 

So as I thought what else to do with them, I reached out on a whim to my friend Joel. Joel is the pastor of Peoples Park Reformed Church in Paterson. It’s a Spanish-speaking congregation that has been experiencing some incredible revitalization over the last year and doing some wonderful things in their neighborhood. Providence has connected Joel and me a few times over the last 9 months. I texted and asked if there was any chance he or the church could use some window air conditioners or if they knew someone who could. 

Within a few moments I saw the three dots pop up and I waited for a while as he typed. When I got his response it included screen shots of some text messages, and he went on to explain that they had been looking for some window air conditioners for the basement space where they hold Bible studies and a number of other classes and gatherings. It gets very hot down there, he said. They thought they had a lead on some from another pastor in Paterson and had gone the day before to pick them up only to discover that they didn’t work. He said they were quite disappointed that it didn’t work out and they weren’t sure what they would do.

It took God less than 24 hours to answer their prayers. Pastor Joel was so grateful and said, “You lifted my spirits! Your message came at just the right time.” 

We spend a lot of our days walking around wrapped up in the immediate details of our lives unaware of much that is beyond us, then every so often we run smack into some coincidence like this that makes us aware that our lives have been taken up into something so much larger than ourselves. God cares about prayers for air conditioners on hot days. God works by small nudges in arenas that feel inconsequential. God uses small acts of generosity to bless and encourage those in need of it. 

I’m profoundly grateful for experiences like this when I get to see the work God is doing and understand that, in some small way, I’m part of it. And so are you! 

God is good. All of the time, God is good.

In Christ,

Pastor Andy