On a whim, I typed my great-great-grandfather’s name and “Ireland” into the internet search bar. Turns out there are innumerable Patrick McDonalds from Ireland, so I refined my search by adding “Ohio” and the approximate date that he immigrated to America as a child. This time I discovered copies of Patrick’s death certificate and obituary, and a picture of his grave. I read that he was a member of the Squirrel Hunter’s Army, served as a blacksmith during the Civil War when he was twenty, and that he died peacefully at 85.

Perusing those documents gave me a feeling of connection to this great-great-grandfather that I’d never met. After all, Patrick McDonald is the beginning of my family’s history in the United States. He’s presumably the one who gave us blue eyes and, to some of my cousins, their bright red hair. And he’s the one who bestowed on us the Irish family name that five generations of McDonalds have carried proudly since then.

A few weeks after finding my ancestor on the internet, we hosted a team of short-term volunteers, trekking with them into Andean villages and sharing newly printed Quechua Bibles. As we walked through one tiny town, a couple came to their door with a crate of fruit and bottles of water for the hikers in our group. I thanked them for the tangerines and water, and the man replied, “Hermana, thank you for coming.”

When he called me “Sister,” I knew we were members of the same family. This beautiful Quechua couple was living out Jesus’ words in Mark 9:41 by giving us bottles of water in Jesus’ name, because they recognized that we also belong to the Messiah.

It’s a blessing to share a close bond with our family of origin, but the reality is that many of us live a continent away from the people who share our surname. So it’s an even greater blessing to find family wherever we go, even in a tiny village in the Andes Mountains. We may not look like these brothers and sisters, but we have the same Father, and through Him we share a family name that will last into eternity.