God has a unique perspective on time and circumstance. He works things out over decades in ways we could never anticipate. The story in this post illustrates this beautifully.
In the 1980’s Gail and I became friends with Harry and Maria Stobie and their family when we all attended Clear Lake Bible Church in Texas. The Stobies later moved to Nacogdoches and Gail and I went to seminary in Illinois and then helped start Trinity Fellowship in Friendswood Texas.
In 1997 Gail and I became foster parents to a little boy named Alex. Alex had been adopted from Russia, but his adoptive parents were not up to the task, so we acted as his foster parents for more than a year, waiting for a new adoptive family to be found.
During that time we visited first with Maria and then with Maria and Harry. First Maria and then Harry fell in love with Alex. Though they had just become empty nesters, they concluded that God was leading them to adopt him. For a while after that we provided occasional respite care for them (Alex was a handful) but then our contacts became less frequent.
Our last real (non-Facebook) contact came in 2005. Hurricane Rita was threatening the Houston area and a mandatory evacuation was ordered. I stayed home as long as I could and then embarked on a 24 hour attempted evacuation which ended in Nacogdoches. I stayed with Harry and Maria a couple of nights while the hurricane passed near by.
Fast forward nineteen years. By summer of 2024 Gail and I had joined the Crisis Response ministry. When Hurricane Debby moved up the East Coast in August, I connected with a couple of churches near its projected path. As I looked at the staff page for Coastal Bible Church near Savannah, Georgia I saw a picture of the elders and discovered that one of them was named Harry Stobie. I called the church and got his number and it turned out that it was the same Harry Stobie I had last seen in 2005. Maria had passed away from cancer 3-1/2 years earlier, but his kids were doing well. Even Alex was doing well. It was a joy to catch up with them.
And the story doesn’t end there. As the conversation went on I described the ministry Gail and I are involved in with Crisis Response, and Harry was intrigued. I invited him to come down some time and spend a week in Fort Myers with a team, working to rebuild homes and impact lives.
And he did! Harry served with the team from Community Church in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania the week of November 10th (see our post “Teams Are the Best”). Harry connected well with the team, did great work, had a great time, and made new friends among the homeowners, team members, and staff. By the end of the week was talking about doing it again soon. He even took most of the team out to dinner one night and bought (generous) gag gifts for several of the team members at the end of the week.
Who would have thought that a potential hurricane would lead to a reunion after 19 years? God works his purposes across time and space and we are privileged to play a little part, together, in what he is doing.
If you would like to serve in Fort Myers, whether for a week or longer, we would be thrilled. Drop us a note or give us a call! Gail 281-797-8932; gail.degray@efca.org; Bob 281-787-7130; bob.degray@efca.org.) If you would like to support Gail and I, (always needed and appreciated, especially at the end of the year), here is the link to our giving site: Bob and Gail DeGray