While sitting at dinner tonight, we had a clear view of our neighbors working to clean and winterize their pool.\u00a0 (Mine was done weeks ago … I’ve learned my lesson!)\u00a0 Melissa had mentioned that while I was\u00a0in Haiti, these particular neighbors had expressed an interest in checking out our church sometime.\u00a0 Since we won’t be needing any inflatable pool toys in Haiti, this seemed like a good opportunity to give something away AND follow up on their earlier interest.\u00a0 I have to admit that we have lived here five years now and that is the first time I have set foot in our neighbors’ house.\u00a0 God forgive me!\u00a0 Why is it so hard to even invest time in getting to know our neighbors, much less to share the gospel with them??\u00a0 I don’t want to travel all the way to Haiti in order to share the gospel without first doing all I can to share Jesus with the folks right here around us.\u00a0 A couple from our church lives just a few houses down from us and they do a fantastic job of reaching out to neighbors.\u00a0 In fact, what little contact Melissa and I have had with folks on our street over the last few years has come mostly by way of the neighborhood cookouts, ice cream socials,\u00a0and other gatherings that this couple has hosted at their house.\u00a0 At least two or three times a year they come knocking on our door with an invitation.\u00a0 I want to be like that!\u00a0 What are we so bashful about?\u00a0 And what do we have to do that is more pressing than loving our neighbors as ourselves? OK, I grew up shy and introverted.\u00a0 And\u00a0for the time being\u00a0I need an excuse to strike up a conversation with my neighbors … and my project to daily Throw, Give or Sell might provide just that.\u00a0\u00a0My hope is that\u00a0it will stretch me to the point where I can be bold for Christ without a gimmick!\u00a0 Our neighbor did ask why we were giving away the giant turtle.\u00a0 We briefly explained the call we have been feeling to minister in Haiti and she was excited for us.\u00a0 She said she would like to visit our church sometime but it’s hard for them to get moving on\u00a0a Sunday morning.\u00a0 Maybe we can make arrangements\u00a0this coming\u00a0Saturday with them to go together Sunday morning to the second service.\u00a0 It was an opening but there’s so much more to talk about.\u00a0 Maybe I’ll take them a leftover bottle of chlorine next week…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
While sitting at dinner tonight, we had a clear view of our neighbors working to clean and winterize their pool.\u00a0 (Mine was done weeks ago … I’ve learned my lesson!)\u00a0 Melissa had mentioned that while I was\u00a0in Haiti, these particular neighbors had expressed an interest in checking out our church sometime.\u00a0 Since we won’t be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4516","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4516","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4516"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4516\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4517,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4516\/revisions\/4517"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}