by Joy Irvine Garrat
My first Christmas on MFT was shocking when I found out I was not going home. Then I was dropped off door to door with tons of flower bouquets in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. 9 am. OMG! 9 am on Christmas morning! I was on a mostly Japanese team who did not have any concept of the 21 years of emotional Christmas I was dealing with! Full of wrath, resentment, and all sorts of delightful feelings I started out door to door. It was one of those turn around moments in my spiritual life. A middle class neighborhood where I expected to interrupt dozens of happy families. While I met those families, too, so many were alone–divorced fathers, elderly folks who would not be seeing their families elsewhere, lonely people literally thrilled to have a bright young woman knock on the door of their pain. I was served breakfast, snacks, given gifts–the biggest gift was to once again experience God’s own heart and the heart of those ordinary people who silently live lives with great moments of pain and loneliness.