Home

My Facebook profile doesn't list a hometown or a current city for that matter. Lots of places around the world are part of the idea of home for me. No single place is a complete picture of home, but Richmond is a part of what I consider my home.

I only lived in Richmond for two and half years after I graduated from college. I enjoy the running the Monument Ave. 10k, seeing movies at the Byrd Theatre, and spending afternoons at Maymont Park in the spring, but these aren't the things that I think of when I remember Richmond.

Richmond is a part of the mosaic that is my concept of home largely because of my church community.

Lots of things have changed at WEPC and in my Bible study in the last two years, but some things have stayed the same.

Every sermon still ends with Jesus and the cross. I can take a class called "Theology for Living", but more importantly WEPC is still a community that daily lives out their theology. I can still laugh hard with the women in my Bible study. It is also still a group women that have the freedom and love for one another to be able to share openly about our lives.

I could go on for paragraphs about the things that have stayed the same about my church community that make it home, but I will just share one more example.

My pastor still gives the same benediction every Sunday. The first time I heard it again after two years, well I really don't know how to describe how I felt and I'm not great with words, but I guess I could say it was like the peace and joy of being welcomed into a place you can rest and comfortably be yourself because you are loved. Okay that was cheesy, but the benediction really does mean a lot to me.

Today I attended Sudan Christian fellowship, and during the greeting time, I shook hands with everyone in the congregation. This Sudanese custom again brought a feeling a home to me. Sudan is now a part of my mosaic of home. I practiced a bit of Juba Arabic with Sudanese believers from many different tribes, and their joy over the very simplest phrases I managed to piece together also reminded me of my home in Mundri.

But ultimately, as a friend commented recent post, "Our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ" (Phil 3:20)