Today I’m listening to a sound which is, thankfully, not one I have heard lately. A power nail gun. You may recall that in the last place I lived, my landlady was addicted to renovating. A jackhammer replaced my alarm clock and a headache was my constant companion. I’ve found that the best part of home ownership is never having someone in our house with power tools unless we invite them, which has been rare.

I started out today grumbling that the workers we’d contracted to reface our kitchen cabinets (the poor person’s alternative to replacement) were late. I expected them to be late. My personal theory is to triple whatever time frame they tell you. If they say it’ll take one week, I count on three. If they say they’ll come between 8:00-5:00, I’m convinced they’ll arrive at 4:59. It’s not just construction types; I don’t believe anyone when they talk time. Maybe that comes from living in Eastern Europe and learning to expect the unexpected. Or maybe it’s just reality. Doctors ask you to come 20 minutes early (so why don’t they just change the appointment time?) and then see you 45 minutes late. When people tell me they want to talk for 10 seconds, I know they mean at least 15 minutes.

As soon as the guys arrived and introduced themselves, I heard their strong accents and my attitude changed. Turns out Alex, Dmitry, and Slav are from Moldova (one of my former countries) and Alex was even involved in Campus Crusade as a student. He claims to remember me from a conference I spoke at in 1998. While they started demolishing our cabinet doors, I got out my photo album so we could look at our friends in common. I was reminded of how much fun God must have as He weaves the tapestries of our days.

Dmitry summed it all up. “It’s a tight world.” I think he meant small. And it is.