Dear Friends in Christ,

     My wife's all time favorite movie has always been "The Wizard of Oz." We taped it once years ago on our VCR. Then we recorded it again—and again. Every time it came on the television, Linda asked me to record another copy. When I suggested to her that the five copies we had should suffice, she replied, "Well, you never know. Something might happen to them and then I wouldn't have a copy to watch."

     In the movie, Dorothy clicks the heels of her ruby red shoes together, and transitions from being in the Land of Oz to arriving back home in Kansas. She wakes up and finds herself in bed, surrounded by her Aunt Em and her dearest friends ad says, "There's no place like home; there's no place like home."

     When my parents were deciding to sell the old home place in Miami and move into a retirement community nearly ten years ago, they called to ask if I had any feelings about them selling the home where I grew up. I shared with them in the years since I left home, they had remodeled, built an addition, put in a pool and a gazebo in the back yard. So it wasn't exactly the same place it was when I grew up there. Besides, I said, home for me has always been wherever the people I love are. It is the relationship between us and those in our families that makes home a special place. For my brothers and me, home was a caring, nurturing place, where we always knew we were loved and safe. I know that for all too many people in our communities today, home is not always such a blessed place. Some homes are filled with violence, mean-spiritedness, and abuse. Some family dynamics are so wretched that the children in the home can't wait to get away and never go back.

     I had a conversation with a young man just a few weeks ago about my home life as a child and teenager, and he confessed he had never known that kind of love and encouragement growing up. He'd always been made to feel as though he had no worth and what I was describing to him sounded like a fantasy to him. We talked about how he could break that cycle and one day build the kind of family he'd like to have his children experience, and I believe he has a good chance to do just that.

     Well, this month, we're celebrating another kind of Homecoming. We'll be gathering as a family in Christ, to remember the saints who have gone before us, who laid a foundation of faith, hope, and love for all who would follow as worshippers in this sacred space. We have inherited from them the opportunity to continue to create the kind of "Home in Christ" at Rehobeth to which people will yearn to return. And we have also inherited a promise: "I go to prepare a place for you, and if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and take you unto myself, that where I am you may be also." One day each of us will go "home" to that place Jesus spoke of in the quote above, and what a marvelous Homecoming that will be! There will be no suffering, sorrow, disease, or death there, and God will wipe away our every tear. It will be a day of glad family reunion with those who have gone before.

     I hope to see you on May 2 for Homecoming as one of our own, the Rev. Randy Sherrill, returns to bring the Homecoming message. May God continue to bless your home and your loved ones!

Yours in Christ,

Bob

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