One day when Liz and her family drove into their driveway, she noticed a neighbour walking on the sidewalk near her house. Liz wound down her window and casually asked, “Hey, how are you doing?”

The answer wasn’t casual.

Her neighbour responded with a rush of emotion — frustration, exhaustion, pain. With their children still in the car, Liz quickly parked, stepped out, and asked a simple question: “Can I give you a hug?”

While Liz pulled her neighbour aside, her husband quietly took care of the car and kids. And then the story came out.

Her dad had lung cancer. He’d received a replacement lung, but his body hadn’t accepted it. That very morning he’d been rushed into emergency. She was shaken, exhausted, and barely holding it together.

Over the past year, Liz and her husband had stayed in touch and prayed for her — through leukaemia, then melanoma, then a fall that broke both her shoulders. And just that week, she’d learned the leukaemia had returned.

No wonder she was overwhelmed.

Because Liz and her husband had taken time for small, ordinary check-ins throughout the year, Liz felt able to ask, “Could I pray for your dad — and for you?”

She said yes.

Since then, Liz and her husband have dropped off orchids. They’ve kept texting. They’ve kept walking with her.

Interestingly, she’s always said she doesn’t want anyone else in the street to know what’s going on. Yet she’s been happy for them to walk with her — because she knows they genuinely care. In very real, tangible ways, she’s experiencing God’s love.

This time of year is flatchat (busy). School is finishing. Christmas is looming. Schedules are full and attention is thin.

But sometimes the most significant moments happen when we slow down just enough to notice the person already beside us.

This isn’t about adding another thing to your plate. It’s about being present where God has already placed you — in your driveway, your street, your everyday.

Thank you for being part of a community that believes God works powerfully through simple, faithful presence.

P.S. Who do you think would be encouraged by this email?  Forward it to them and let them know they can walk alongside experienced cross-cultural evangelists by visiting: https://hereslife.com/encouragement