6 Degrees

My mom just got home from vacation and brought home an amazing story but she didn’t get the names and email addresses of the main characters in the story that could be made into a drama complete with a happy ending.

I really want to test the theory of six degrees of separation as well and I will put this on my blog and facebook and allow everyone to gain access to this tale because I am a storyteller but this is not my story and I so dearly want to give credit where credit is due. My mother spent the past three weeks on a cruise through the Panama Canal. She had a wonderful time and enjoyed sharing her table with a cute German couple, a set Irish lifetime BFF’s as well as a lovely couple originally from Rhodesia.

Apparently the Rhodesians belonged to the merchant class having been the owners of a department store before the troubled times. But revolution came to their homeland and our couple (they will be J and Z.) As Rhodesia was tumbling into chaos, J and Z escaped with nothing more than their two young children and the scant clothes on their backs.

Uprooted without means of support of any sort, J and Z spent time in a refugee camp before the opportunity arose for them to be allowed to achieve resident worker status in England, Canada, and several other countries. J and Z felt as though they had nothing to lose and a new life in a safe country to gain so they signed the paperwork and waited for the word that would determine their future in an unknown land.  They were fortunate to have Canada selected to be their new homesite.

They were told that Canada was a cold land.

They responded by packing a sweater for each member of their little family.

Under those circumstances they arrived at Toronto’s Airport.

They lived in Toronto Airport for three weeks.

About the time, some random man from the Toronto metro area started feeling an intense sense that God wanted him to go down to the airport because someone needed help.

Since this story is told through the eyes of J and Z, I don’t know how this man felt I’m assuming he went through the normal human angst upon sensing such specific direction from God (or was it that pizza he ate last night?)

But he did listen to that direction in spite of the disarming specificity of details.

After several trips to the airport, the Canadian man, (we’ll call him R) finally discovered our little refugee family that was living in the airport with nothing but the clothes on their backs (including a sweater but no coat.)

Mr. R. went out and secured a wardrobe for each family member including a warm coat, hats, gloves, and scarves.

R went on to find the family a decent apartment in a safe part of the city and furnished the apartment albeit with Salvation Army finds.

He helped J and Z find work so they could support themselves with dignity.

Eventually, the family moved to Vancouver where the J found work managing a chain of restaurants eventually buying into the business. Their children took advantage of educational opportunities and the daughter is now a doctor and the son is a professional in another field (my mother cannot remember the details.)

I want to test the six degrees of separation. I want to discover the faces and names that belong to this story. J, Z, R, and little ones, your story is an amazing testimony of the goodness that can be found in people when they listen to the small still voice God uses when He speaks into our lives.