“Now,” he said, scooting his chair closer to the desk as if he had a point he wanted to make, “since you are here, there is something I’d like to discuss with you. I am selecting several members to represent us on a relocation committee which has been formed by several like-minded churches. Would you be interested in doing that?”
“Relocation? Of whom and to where?” Then suddenly I understood. “Oh, you mean to relocate the Homes for Teens? Yes, indeed, I would be delighted to help find a more suitable place.”
He turned his head and with a condescending smile said, “No, that isn’t what I have in mind. We, and I’m sure I can include you and Sam in this, are most concerned about the displaced people in the war-torn areas of the world. An active and highly committed ecumenical group is making plans to accept a few of those families to relocate here in Abbot County.”
I was too stunned to answer immediately, but finally managed to ask, “Displaced Christians?”
“Oh, Miss Julia,” he said, shaking his head as if disappointed in my response. “We mustn’t judge people on the basis of their faith.”
“Isn’t that what’s being done to Christians?”
He discounted my question with an abrupt shake of his head. “But it’s not our way to do something simply because someone else does it. Now, I would love to continue our conversation, but I’m due to make a hospital visit. Please think over what I’ve said, and remember, Miss Julia, we must ask ourselves in all situations this one important question: What would Jesus do?”
And he ushered me, temporarily speechless, out the door.
By the time I got to the sidewalk I was boiling. Not only was he foisting junior criminals on us, he intended to settle among us foreign refugees who probably believed that ecumenical cooperation involved beheading unbelievers—which was one way of getting a consensus.
And, I fumed, the nerve of the man, quoting Scripture to me and referring to Jesus, neither being frequently mentioned from the pulpit. Almost unfailingly, Pastor Rucker took the texts, illustrations, and examples in his sermons from some movie he’d seen.
I was beside myself.
Chapter 7
The house was quiet that evening, as it usually was with just the two of us, Lloyd and me, there. With Sam gone for a few weeks, it was a comfort to have the boy in the house. Not only was he good company, he helped fill my empty hours. Lillian had left earlier, leaving the kitchen spotless, as she always did, and Lloyd was upstairs doing homework.
I was sitting in the library tracing Sam’s itinerary on a map of Europe that he’d left so I would know where he was and what he was seeing each day. If I was following the list of his stops accurately, he would be visiting the stunning cathedral of Chartres with its rose window the next day. I knew he would be thrilled to see it, and I was glad that he had taken the trip, even though his absence left me at loose ends.
The television was on, turned low now that the news hour had passed, and good riddance, I thought. Not one report had been the least bit edifying. In fact, just the opposite, each report only confirmed Sam’s stated conviction that the world was going to hell in a handbasket.
At the sound of Lloyd’s huge sneakers clomping down the stairs, I put aside my gloomy thoughts and anticipated a talk with him.
“Miss Julia?” he said from the doorway of the library. “Want some ice cream? I’m having some.”
“No, I think not, but thank you for asking. Come back and talk with me a little.”
“Okay.”
I heard the freezer door open in the kitchen and the clank of spoon and bowl as he dipped out ice cream. In a few minutes he wandered back into the library, holding a cereal bowl full of rocky road in one hand and a spoon in the other.
“Man, this is good,” he said, licking the spoon. “What did you want to talk about?”
“Nothing in particular. How’s school going?”
“Pretty good. Same old, same old, you know.”
It was obvious that he wasn’t in a talkative mood, so I couldn’t steer a conversation that didn’t exist around to what I wanted to talk about. So I just asked him straight out.
“Lloyd, I have come up against a spiritual problem.”
His head jerked up from his ice cream bowl as he stared at me. “A spiritual problem?”
“Yes, and I’d like to hear your thoughts on the subject. What do you think Jesus would do if He lived in Abbotsville and somebody asked Him to help bring foreign refugees to this country and settle them here in our town? And keep in mind that these people are in pitiful condition and truly need help, but that they are also highly unlikely to want to blend in with the neighborhood. Taking all of that into account, do you know what Jesus would do? Or what He’d want us to do?”
“Oh, sure,” Lloyd said, scraping the bowl with his spoon, not at all thrown by the question. “He’s already told us. Remember the parable of the Good Samaritan? There’s the answer. You sure you don’t want some ice cream?”
“No, thanks,” I murmured, taken aback both by his knowledge and by his confidence in that knowledge.
“I’m gonna have a little more, then go to bed. Have to get to school early to help Freddie Pruitt with algebra before class.”
“Sleep well, honey.”
As soon as I heard him climb the stairs, I made a beeline for the Bible—the one with the concordance in the back—on Sam’s desk and looked up the parable.
I had to read it three times before the meaning as it related to my current situation dawned
