Article December 19, 1994 Issue

"Of the household of God"

Christina Sloan

"This is for you," she said as she took the banana from her handbag. It was a generous gesture to me, someone she'd only known for one hour. In this recently liberated Eastern European country, such fruits had once been available only at Christmas, and to those willing to pay a good part of their month's salary. Such fruits were a little freer on the market now in September 1991, but still exceedingly costly.

During the ten hours I had been in Czechoslovakia, every hour had been filled with some expression of friendship and helpfulness from train attendants, people on the street, and those in bureaus. One elderly woman closed her place of work, put her arm around me, and walked me down to the train to be certain I took the right one—all this without one word of a common language between us. My whole three-day sojourn there was one shower of love.

During the week before this trip, while I was studying the Lesson-Sermon outlined in the Christian Science Quarterly, it dawned on me that I was making my trip to Prague not simply as a tourist but as a Christian Scientist. I was taking with me my highest understanding of what man truly is, the beloved child of God, who is the Father and Mother of all. I was taking the greatest tool for communication there is: spiritual love for the people of that country, who are really my sisters and brothers. I would be what the Bible shows us we can be: "ambassadors for Christ" (II Cor. 5:20).

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