Spinney Cottage

Thanks, Trond Åsheim, for posting this on Facebook.

I was a naïve nineteen-year-old Christian missionary from rural Utah living in Bury St. Edmunds, England. It was so cold I would put baked potatoes in my overcoat pockets to keep my hands warm while proselyting and then ate them for a snack as they cooled.

I lived with a flat mate in Spinney Cottage, a rundown shack on the outskirts of town. Pipes ran through the coal stove in the kitchen. If one stoked a fire before bedtime, there would be just enough lukewarm water in the morning to take an uncomfortably cool bath. There was also a coin operated water heater, but it only worked if you had a coin to put in it.

Mark and I came home one night to find Spinney Cottage as dark and uninviting as ever, but we knew things were different the moment we opened the door. Warm air enveloped us. That, in and of itself, was a shocker. When Mark hit the light switch, we beheld a kitchen we’d never seen. While we’d been knocking on doors, someone had scrubbed the smoke and soot from the counters and the yellow tile backsplash. The whole room was a different color. The sink was clean, the floor swept. Everything was in its place—and not the places we’d left them; the places they belonged.

Photo by Eric Morris. Trust me, it was cold in the winter.

A wonderful smell filled the room. There was a fire in the stove and a casserole in the oven. We had hot homemade food! The fridge was full, as were the cupboards, including the peanut butter and Oreos we’d missed and couldn’t buy in England. We looked at each other, laughed like little girls and danced around the kitchen. It felt like a big warm hug from home.

An American family living on the nearby Mildenhall Air Force Base had raided their commissary and visited our humble kitchen. It’s hard to describe how that felt as a lonely boy in a foreign land. I get emotional just remembering it.

Never underestimate the impact of your tiny acts of service. You may save a soul or make someone’s journey a little easier.