In 2003, I was out of work, paying for a collapsed business, broke, and strangling my credit cards just to buy groceries for my family and pay the mortgage. It was a dismal, awful, painful, miserable time. Then IBM called me and told me they could put me to work if I renewed my training certificates. Problem was, I'd have to fly to Atlanta and Chicago to complete necessary training to renew my certs. I couldn't afford the airline tickets. The cards were maxed out. I was $80,000 in debt. My dad had made a couple of mortgage payments for me. He didn't have the money to give me.
Len Bundy cashed in frequent-flyer miles to get me the airline tickets I needed to take classes in Chicago and Atlanta to renew my certifications and start earning an income again. In return, he asked that I donate the labor to wire up his office in Ravenna with an ethernet network.
Len knew that I was in need. Desperate need. He also knew I was too damnably proud to accept charity from him. So he made me a deal that provided what I so desperately needed, but let me have some dignity at a time when dignity was in very, very short supply for me.
I was grateful, and will always be grateful to him for that.
Len could be a complicated guy, and he and I found ourselves at times in opposite corners under complicated circumstances. But Len loved God and he served people. People like me.
We lost Len this week. He went home to be with Jesus. The world is a grayer, duller place without him.
(Picture courtesy of Katie Voss)
