The sun sank into the autumn sky as mosquito repellant was passed around. My family and I were attending a party at our neighbors’ home. We watched their daughter giggle over her birthday cake as her entire family gathered to sing in the local language. I smiled, tears of joy welling, and took in the scene, realizing I had been invited into an important moment in this family’s life. I draped my arm around my husband’s back. He did the same to me as we stood watching the celebration. He was smiling, too, and his peaceful expression said he felt the same. 

We were home. Maybe not in the country of our passports, but with trust in God’s sovereignty, we were relishing the work He was doing in our lives. We had lived in another region of the world for seven years before moving to southeast Asia, and sometimes we longed for the deep relationships we cultivated there. But after one year of intense language and culture study in our new country, where many people are suspicious of foreigners, we had been extended a small measure of trust through a party invitation. Inviting someone into family events speaks loudly about the relationship status.  

We felt as if we had been tending soil for months… planting, watering, and receiving grace for mistakes. Suddenly, there was growth, evidence of God’s unseen work. Our longing for inclusion in the community was heartily reciprocated. My husband and I sang along with birthday songs, anticipating fruit God would bear in budding friendships and in our own relationships with Him. He had poured His love on us and we were giving it back to Him with unspoken, but powerful devotion welling within us. My husband and I are naturally inclined to reach across cultures, trusting God to work His goodness in relationships. 

We were made to worship this way–not only in intense, emotional moments of blessing but through quiet reverence and daily decisions to honor Him. We want to delight in the Creator and wholeheartedly enjoy who He intended us to be, realizing every moment of life happens before Him.