Wilma lives with her brother and her children in South Linden. This is not the place most folks would choose to lay down roots. Wilma is not most. I don’t know Wilma’s age but she’s been through a lot in her years. She has been being BUILT TO LEAD whenever she can get to any of our Friday Pastors practices or whenever she can shadow me at work. She loves this work and she loves taking her learning back to her hood.
Her OPUS, she tells me, is working with her family, friends, and neighbors and helping them find their way beyond the drug culture that dominates their street corners. You see, South Linden is the heart of trouble in central ohio. It just is.
Yesterday when Wilma showed up at our Pastors friday practice, she brought her wisdom, her smile, and her LOVE of the Bible. She told Joshua and Natalie the truth in LOVE. And, she inspired them to go back to their team and do the same. She blessed all of us with her presence and with her belief in God’s calling in her life.
Sheepishly, she looked at me and asked quietly so as not to embarrass me, “Chet, did you happen to remember to bring me a 12 playbook?” She has an old version that goes back to 2005 and she’s seen us with the new ones and asked me a couple months back if I could get her a new one too. I forgot to bring it the last go. I forget to many important things like this all the time. I write it down and I still somehow fail. Yesterday, however, I remembered. I handed Wilma a brand new 12 playbook and her eyes sparkled with pure JOY. The way she turned the pages and marveled at my work was more marvelous than gold. Wilma paid me in full and it didn’t cost her a dime.
In fact, Wilma, yesterday felt like a friday of old. Yesterday felt like a friday back in the corporate world, where friday represented payday. As Wilma wandered through the playbook with all her senses fully engaged and fully alive, my little heart experienced something better than the satisfaction of tearing open another pay stub with a big number staining the pulp. Yesterday was one of the biggest payday’s of my little life. Yesterday I was paid well beyond what I deserved, what I earned, what I felt I was worth. Yesterday’s payment seared me like a big number never will.
Thanks Wilma.
God bless Wilma and her work. God bless her impact in South Linden. AND, God thank you for bringing Wilma my way. Wilma is BUILT TO LEAD, and soon South Linden will be too. Very cool, my friend.
Very cool…
BUILT TO LEAD 