Reflections on a Spiritual Homecoming

Why Her Choice Mattered More Than Words Could Say

There are moments that shimmer in memory long after the world moves on.

For me, the fall of 1979 at Northern Kentucky University is one of them. I was a newly minted campus minister. She was a math major—brilliant, curious, biblically illiterate. I was the opposite: theologically saturated, hopeless with numbers.

Her name was Annette. And forty-six years later, she spent her final two days in the U.S. not sightseeing, not at a beach, but sitting in our living room, sharing her story with me and my wife, Sheila.

We hadn’t seen her in twenty-five years.

A Visit That Said More Than Words Could

Annette arrived after midnight on Saturday night—flight delays and all. Our very vocal Chiweenie, Bella, barked furiously, but she just laughed and embraced us like we’d seen each other last week.

She carried only one small suitcase. But her eyes sparkled with anticipation and purpose.

I had no idea what those two days would hold. But I knew this wasn’t just a visit. It was a return.

“Why Here?” I asked her on Sunday afternoon after church.

“Because this is where it began,” she said, her voice soft but sure.
“Because you listened when others didn’t. Because I wanted to say thank you to the person who helped me find my voice.”

What do you say to that?

The Power of Memory

We talked all day and well into the night.

About her Peace Corps days in Ethiopia. About meeting her husband Bob in grad school. About their medical missions in Nigeria and Eswatini. About their son Ozioma. She told us Bob had once been kidnapped by rebels in Nigeria—shot and held for ransom. I admitted I probably would’ve packed up and moved after that, no questions asked.

She just smiled.

“We did.”

We talked like old friends who never lost the thread—about life, Scripture, spiritual growth, and the calling that shaped both of us.

And then she pulled out the reason she’d come.

A Gift Returned

From her travel case, she pulled out printed lessons. Then she connected her laptop to our TV.

“I want to show you something,” she said.

What followed was remarkable: hundreds of pages of lessons tracing parallels between physical growth and spiritual growth, organized by age and life stage: children, teens, parents, elders.

“I trust you,” she said. “I’d love your honest critique. I want to publish these—to help others who teach the Bible to those unfamiliar with it.”

I laughed and said, “That gives you a big target audience!”

I told her I was proud of her. But what I felt was awe.

The Quiet Echoes of Mentorship

Before she left early Monday morning, she hugged me and whispered:

“Thank you for everything. Your discipleship lessons and mentorship put me on this path.”

I had no words. Just a full heart.

She drove away, but something stayed behind—a quiet affirmation that what we do in faith, however small it may seem at the time, echoes for decades.

I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. (1 Cor 3:6)

What Her Visit Meant

Her visit was not just a reunion. It was a spiritual homecoming—for her and, oddly enough, for me.

In a world driven by metrics and milestones, it’s easy to forget the slow, often invisible power of influence.

But sometimes—if we’re lucky—we get to see it bloom

What We Leave Behind

Now I have work to do—reading and critiquing her curriculum, probably fielding emails across continents. But more than that, I have a renewed sense of what matters.

• Not the spotlight.

• Not the size of the ministry.

• But the seeds planted.

• The lives touched.

• The conversations that outlast decades.

What she gave me last weekend wasn’t just a thank you.
It was a living, breathing reminder that time spent in service to another is never wasted.

---

🕊️ Thanks for reading. If this reflection resonated with you, I’d love to hear how you've seen long-forgotten seeds of mentorship come to life again.