Vacation travels prove ‘there is no place
like home’ for encouragement, training



About 10 days into our two-week vacation, during which we would eventually drive 4,700 miles, Mary and I looked at one another and sighed, “I’m ready to go home.”
It’s not that we weren’t having a good time experiencing the beauty and power of Niagara Falls or that we felt visiting Mary’s family in Detroit was unimportant. Indeed, we retain wonderful memories of our vacation. But we simply understood that “there is no place like home.”
We have loved the Valley from our first visit, but it has become more than a vacation destination. It is now our home!
You leaders among the laity and clergy of the McAllen District have helped us to claim this place as our home. You have prepared for our coming, welcomed us, included us and respected us as we sought to lead this district
forward in following Jesus.
As Mary and I begin our second year with you, we look forward to working with you. But we look forward as well to living with you in our home here.
On our vacation travels, we intermingled with many different ethnic groups, ages, languages and subcultures (The diversity in the world is much greater than in our congregations.).
I observed that most people had someone else to relate to, but I wondered how many of those
same people had a good home.
A good home for me is a place to take your troubles… to at least have your voice heard, if not to have your problems resolved. A good home is a sanctuary where you can go to your room to contemplate in silence the sins committed against you—or by you. A good home is where you can be fed and encouraged and trained. A good home teaches you what is really important in life.
My dear friends of the McAllen District, your local congregation can be a good home like that. It already is for so many of your members. But it can be that for those folks out there who are different from you and who
are searching for a good home.
You have something to give to the people of the world, and by the power of God who desires, even yearns, to invite all people to a good home where they can live and love like family, you can offer such a home to others.
It is true, even in God’s understanding, that “there is no place like home.”