The Amazing Results of Generosity (a.k.a. the greatest gift...)

Nonnie and Chris 1987

Sometimes we joke that it's a good thing my mother-in-law's budget can't afford her the luxury of giving to her heart's content, or we'd have had to build a bigger house.  It would be an understatement to say she tends to go overboard buying things for her friends and family.  That's her love language to be sure.  She is generous to a fault.  The Home Shopping Network has not been her greatest friend.  Thankfully Jim's brother saw what was happening, and put a lower limit on her credit card before it got too far out of hand.

One of the greatest gifts my mother-in-law, Nonnie, ever gave to our family was a set of the Dan and Louie tapes mentioned in the last post.  We certainly got a lot of mileage out of them.  (Pun intended)

While we were on furlough in 1990-1991 our kids got hooked on all the children's programming on WCRF, which is where we were introduced to Ranger Bill and Uncle Bob and Whit's End.  A year later, Nonnie was planning a trip to visit us in Guatemala, and asked what the children might like her to bring them.  Hoping she wouldn't spend too much money unnecessarily, I suggested she record some of the shows off the radio to bring us.

Nonnie did something better than that; she went to the radio station and asked if they had cassettes she could buy.  Instead, they gladly gave her an entire box full of all the programs that had already aired.  Nowadays Moody sends each of their programs to their satellite stations literally by satellite, but back then they shipped cassettes which were played once and then discarded.  For years, we were the grateful recipients of many discarded radio shows for children.

When we were in Guatemala, we had a lending library of sorts, and missionaries would borrow (and sometimes keep) a bunch of tapes from us whenever they had a long drive to their village allocations or to the U.S. on furlough.  Many, many families were blessed by those wonderful stories.  To this day, some of those old cassettes are still in use after we donated them to the children's English library for MKs here in our town.

One year when we were in the U.S. again ourselves, we went to WCRF to thank them personally, and to explain how many missionary kids had been blessed by their cassette ministry.  It was an educational field trip as we got to tour the station and see how things were done.  The highlight, though, was meeting Uncle Bob in person!  I'll never forget the thrill of hearing his radio voice as he casually said, "Well, hello, boys and girls!"  It was like meeting a Hollywood celebrity;  we were all speechless.  Only seconds later, though, I felt like he was my very own uncle, and that I had known him all my life.

Lokers and Devines 2006

We've kept in touch all these many years later.  Once he phoned us in Oaxaca to find out how things were after a hurricane struck the Pacific coast.  He interviewed Jim over the phone, and it was broadcast all over the United States.  Our home office received more response to that than any advertising or correspondence ever.  The phone rang all morning as people inquired how they might help.  A team was formed, and a number of volunteers flew down in February 1998 to do construction work in the devastated area.  New friendships were formed, and some even became regular partners in our ministry.


Ironically, one of the team members that week, Glen Dubois, is now the president of our sending organization, Missionary Ventures.  It's sometimes fun to trace the roots of our friendships.  That one gift that Nonnie gave us introduced us to WCRF, Bob Devine, and Glen Dubois!