God's love in a can of sauerkraut!

Did you know God can show up in a can of sauerkraut? He can and He did, let me tell you how. In 1995 I was living at the Calvary Chapel dorm in Moscow serving with our sister church CC 1905. I had been in the country about 4-5 months and struggling with culture shock. I remember being very discouraged one morning after months of not being able to communicate the most basic and simple things, let alone the most important thing, the Gospel. I was getting ready to eat some hot dogs (Europeans love sausages for breakfast) with my friend Gresha. We usually ate breakfast together and hung out a lot, probably because even though I was poor compared to other missionaries, I still had more than my Russian friends, like the ability to buy more food than I needed. In return Gresha helped me a lot in those early days of struggle. So this morning I was having the mother of all pity parties. I remember telling God that I was sorry if I made a mistake and came here of my own selfish reasons and could He let me go home, where I would never complain again? This supposedly metropolitan city was just a large backwards town and you couldn’t find anything good (though one day I found fudge covered oreos and bought every bag they had!) My dad used to take me to a hot dog stand and we’d get hot dogs with sauerkraut and mustard. Every time I eat one it reminds me of him to this day. So this morning I was complaining to God that the city sucked and I hated it here, that I can’t even find sauerkraut! Yes, believe it or not I was a Christian and a missionary! My friend Gresha seeing my disappointment asked what was wrong. I explained I wanted sauerkraut. As with most western things, he had no idea what it was so I tried to explain sauerkraut to him. “Sour cabbage!” He exclaimed. “My mom makes that home-made!” “Really?” I said, half expecting him to say no, just kidding. “Yes, I’ll go home and get some!” At this point you would have thought I was at the Azuza revival as I praised the Lord! Gresha gets back with something that didn’t quite look like sauerkraut, but hey, it’s home-made, what did I expect? I start loading up my dog with huge handfuls. “Don’t you want to at least taste it before doing that?” Gresha asked. Hmm, good point. I take a huge handful and stuff it in my mouth and…YUCK! It was sour cabbage alright! Now I am almost inconsolable. “God, how can You be so cruel to me” I thought.

About 5 minutes after this, my pastor friend’s wife Willene (Willie for short) came into the kitchen, her family had kinda adopted me and I loved them very much. She looks at me and says “We just got a box from the states and I don’t know if you would want this, but we got a can of sauerkraut!” What? Why would someone send a family of four 1 single can of sauerkraut. Why would it show up the morning that I really wanted some sauerkraut? Why would they offer it to me when there were other missionaries living at the dorm? You have to realize, we got boxes every 3-6 months, as they would sit in California in the Calvary Chapel Church Planting Mission’s offices until a team came over and brought it with them because shipping was too expensive back then. Someone would have bought this many months before, sent it to Willlie and her family and it gets there exactly at the time I wanted it. Did God do this because I needed it? No, He did it because he wanted to show me that even 8,000 miles from home, in a place where I could not rely on myself for anything really, that He loved me enough to give me sauerkraut. Just because he loved me. I hope this reminds you of the love He has for you. Even in a can of sauerkraut!