Pool mom

By John Fischer

I met a man once who served on the missions committee at his church. He told me how he was most proud of a certain former member of the committee – a woman who had put a promising career aside when she and her husband decided to adopt three children from Lithuania. Figuring that these children who had grown up at great risk would demand her full-time attention, she committed herself to that very thing. She did enjoy volunteering at the church, however, and ended up serving on the missions committee and teaching Sunday school.

Then suddenly, as abruptly as she had begun serving her church, she informed my friend that she was resigning from the missions committee and giving up her Sunday school class as well. He asked her what was wrong, and she said that everything was fine – God had just spoken to her, and she was going to follow his lead.

“I spent most of the summer being a ‘pool mom,’” she told him, “taking my kids to the pool four to five days a week. I became friendly with several other pool moms, and we all had a lot of time to talk together. As August was winding down and the pool was about to close, one of them said to me, ‘It has been a real pleasure getting to know you this summer. The rest of us have been friends all our lives. We went to the same schools, the same summer camps, and the same temple. We were at each other’s bat-mitzvahs, and we attended each other’s weddings, but we’ve never gotten to know anybody like you. Maybe we could keep in touch.’

“So what could be a clearer direction from God than that?” She concluded. “I’ve decided to spend the next year completely focused on being a friend to this group of young Jewish ladies. I am going to practice friendship first and let evangelism take its natural course. And I don’t want to be distracted by the demands of church activities. If I don’t give them up, I’ll have a very hard time fitting my friends into my schedule. This next year is for them! After that, who knows?”

Think of that: She got off the missions committee to perform a mission – a mission of being a friend. Not that we should disband worship committees or that it will always take our full-time attention to be a friend, but this woman’s priorities are something we all need to pay attention to. Being a friend is a mission in and of itself, and connecting to those around us who are outside the church is more important than being on a host of committees.