The Migration of Old People

Our next door neighbor is Liz. Liz is a concert pianist from New York City. Her friend Cheryl and her mother live directly behind us and Cheryl is also from New York. Two houses up from Cheryl is Robert and his wife who are from New Jersey, and a couple two houses up from us, who will be moving in any day, are from upper New York.  Our other next door neighbors are Fran and Mike from Houston, Texas, and across the street are Mike and Jerry. Mike is a woman. They moved here from Georgia. Next door to them are Mercy and Bob who just moved in on Monday from Florida. Tom and his wife, who live four houses up the street, came from Phoenix, Arizona, and across the street from them are Gigi and Bill from Michigan. A couple behind us are from Oklahoma.

All of these people are seniors like us. Most of them have moved here in the last six months. Most are retired. None of them are from North Carolina. We moved in a little over two months ago. I’ve met a few others, and all of those people are from somewhere else.  I don’t know much about any of my neighbors. Gigi and Bill have been here at least a year. Gigi seems to know more about what is going on around here than any one. She’s a pretty lively little woman who has lots of advice to give. Her husband, Bill, is friendly, but he will be the first to let you know when something in the subdivision goes wrong.

I hope I get to know these people better. It will take time. Three of four of them are very old like me so I’m not sure how much time there will be. I would guess that all of my neighbors are at least in their sixties to early seventies, and some are pushing eighty or more. We are in the winter season of our lives. I wonder how many of these people know Jesus. I’m guessing, and I may be wrong, that there are several who are not ready to meet him. I think that

Sherri and I have moved to a mission field. This past Tuesday we began hosting a small group from our church. We have started with  twelve members who all live close to us. The scripture is discussed and we do a lot of praying. Hopefully, in the next few months Sherri and I can start something like this with our neighbors. I’m sure some of them need to know about Jesus. Maybe our newest neighbor, Mercy, would be a good one to start with.