The Carpenter's Hands on Moving Day

Margaret Chen had lived alone in her apartment on Birch Street for eleven years after her husband passed. When the building was condemned last October, she sat on her front step with nowhere to go and no family within five hundred miles.

By Saturday morning, six members of Grace Fellowship showed up with a borrowed truck. Dave Kowalski, a retired carpenter with arthritic knuckles, spent three hours wrapping every piece of her china in newspaper, handling each plate like it was communion ware. Elaine Foster, who had only met Margaret twice at a Wednesday night potluck, scrubbed the new apartment on her hands and knees before the furniture arrived. Two college students from the youth group carried boxes up three flights of stairs without being asked twice.

Margaret was not a member of their church. She was not even sure she believed in God anymore. But when Dave hung the last curtain rod and Elaine set a pot of coffee on the counter, Margaret looked around and said quietly, "Why would you do all this for someone you barely know?"

Dave wiped his hands on his jeans and said simply, "Because someone did it for us first."