What an interesting season this is proving to be for all of us, new ways of communicating, new ways of connecting with family and friends and new ways of engaging with our work. WFH is the new acronym we are all becoming familiar with and I wonder what your “Working From Home” experience has been like?

For me, the realisation of the pandemic not going anywhere in a hurry caused me to look for additional employment outside of my role with the BUV to supplement our income. In my pursuit for work I found myself landing a casual job with Coles Supermarkets. In all my years of employment I had up until this point avoided casual shifts and avoided working in retail. Along with that realisation was that I haven’t worked outside of a Christian workplace for 26 years.

I always love meeting new people so that was the focus of this adventure, oh and the money is helpful as well as being able to leave my home as an “essential worker”.

What I’ve discovered in the process is that the evangelism gift I thought was the lowest of my fivefold gifting is actually beginning to be exercised. I have been surprised by God in the many spiritual conversations I have had with the people I work with and the customers I am serving. I had one customer thank me for talking to her as she lives alone and hadn’t spoken to anyone in days, another customer apologised for sharing his struggles after I just asked a few simple questions, he said he didn’t normally share his problems with others.

A colleague shared her life journey with me on one occasion when we were working together and later said that only one other person at the store knew her story, she said she didn’t know why she told me but felt I was a safe person.

What a privilege we have to really love people wherever we find ourselves. To love people who are so different to us, to love people who don’t believe what we do, without judgement, without agenda but simply as a response to “For God so loved the world”.

We never know what paths God will lead us on and I don’t know how long my stay on this path at Coles will be but I am so determined that wherever I find myself I am choosing to partner with what God is already doing in the world and I am so grateful that I learning to love and value people more as I keep walking.

Leanne Hill