(This was written on Sunday, but for some reason didn’t get published until Friday night)

We have had a really neat week. It was so great to have our friend Alene visit us, as well as her friend Jennie. Alene worked with Asian Access for a good number of years, and now she is living in Baton Rouge working with her family business.

As Alene interacted with our kids, and some of the neighbors who we met, and our (and her) friends the Thomsons, I was trying to figure out what makes her special. Alene is – unassuming. She has a “normal” job, a fairly routine life. But she has lived anything BUT a normal life. Ask me sometime to tell you her car wash story… or the story about the 200 streakers who surrounded her car… Her unassuming ways still somehow stir up a great deal of excitement.

But what makes Alene so special, I think, is how she loves people. She cares for people immensely – in an unassuming way. I loved watching her talk to our children- they felt like a million dollars, I could tell.

I’m reading a book right now called Anonymous. It looks at Jesus’ life, which was lived in large part in anonymity, and brings perspective to the “anonymous” time periods in our lives.

The iceberg is up to 90% invisible, Chole writes, mostly submerged and unseen. But because of their mass, and that proportion, icebergs are indestructible.

“The most influential life in all of history reflected the iceberg equation. Ninety percent of his life on earth was spent in obscurity. Ten percent of his earthly life was spent in the public eye. And all of his life was, and still is, absolutely indestructible.”

I’m not very good at being unassuming. I have a lot to learn from friends like Alene, and Jesus. Thanks, Alene, for the way that you live, and love. You’ve once again touched me!

Some photos with Alene, Jennie, and the Thomson family at a picnic together…