Lost and Found

Author: Mark Fenstermacher
June 04, 2021

(NOTE: We would like to hear what you have lost and what you have found during the COVID-19 pandemic over the last two years. When you arrive at church this Sunday, please go to the front of the sanctuary. You will find “Post-It” notes, pens and an easel on both sides of the stage. Take a moment to write down on separate pieces of paper what you have lost and what you have found, and place those on the easels.)

On our way into Africa, we spent six weeks at a large mission hospital where we lived, adjusted to life in the Congo, and our father received an orientation into medical work in the field in the tropics. Then, it was time for us head out into a more remote section of the country.

We would travel by rail. Friends carried us to a simple train station that was no larger than a shipping container. The station was located in the middle of a sea of elephant grass, with blue skies as far as we could see. My parents scrambled around getting our luggage and family on the worn-down, long-in-the-tooth train that consisted of two or three passenger cars pulled by a very old diesel locomotive.

My mother was in the passenger coach holding little Edwin. I was standing next to her. As the train pulled out of the station, my father rushed in at the last moment. My mother, looking panicked, asked, “Bob, where is Heidi?”

In the rush to get on board, my four-year old sister had been left standing on the station platform. My Dad said, “I thought she was with you.” My Mom said, “I thought she was with you.”

Our friends on the platform immediately realized what had happened. They scooped up Heidi in their arms, shouted to the station master to radio the train to stop at the next station, ran to their Chevy Suburban, and raced down the road of sand that paralleled the railroad tracks.

I remember the panic in the car as my parents waited out this unplanned separation with their beautiful little girl. And I remember watching the plume of dust stirred up by the speeding Suburban as it followed the train to the next station. I recall the tan dust rising up into the blue, African sky.

The reunion took place at the next station as Heidi was carried onto the train.

My sister has always remembered that as the day she was left behind. I have offered a different take: I remember it as the day she was found.

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The Bible is full of “lost and found” stories. Hagar is lost in the wilderness of despair, and God comes to her. Elijah is hiding in a cave, overwhelmed by self-pity and fear, and God finds him and speaks to him in the silence. The people of Israel are carried into Babylonian exile for more than fifty years, and yet in that experience God shapes them and grows them. 

The writer of Luke, in Chapter 15 of that Gospel, tells the story of the woman who lost a silver coin and searched until she found it. There is also the story of the one sheep that goes wandering off, and the shepherd who goes looking for it until he finds it. Finally, there is the story of the parent with two sons. The youngest goes off and gets lost in a far country and the oldest stays home only to get lost in resentment.

This Sunday we begin a three-week sermon series titled After (the COVID) Exile. Join us this Sunday at 8:30 or 11 am, either online or in-person, for worship as we explore what we have lost over the last two years and what we have found.  We’ll have an opportunity to grieve, to lament and to celebrate.

As we look back on this difficult chapter, I find myself thinking of those great verses from Psalm 139: “Where could I go to get away from your spirit? Where could I go to escape your presence? If I went up to heaven, you would be there. If I went down to the grave, you would be there too! If I could fly on the wings of the dawn, stopping to rest only on the far side of the ocean - even there your hand would guide me; even there your strong hand would hold me tight!”

It’s been a time of loss.

It’s also, for many of us, been a time when we have found unexpected gifts along the way.

In all of it, God has been with us.

What did you lose? What have you found?

Grace and peace,
Pastor Mark

Please remember to come into the sanctuary as you arrive this Sunday, and jot down on individual “Post-It” notes what you lost and what you have found.

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