The Quiet Good: Untold Stories of Faithful Presence
There is a quiet, steadfast love in the world that is unhurried, rooted in Christ, and rich with compassion that rarely makes headlines. It shows up in ordinary places, pays attention, and makes room for the people we too often overlook.
This is the kind of love that Lorry and Shelby have been living for years among their refugee neighbors in Phoenix. Their story isn't polished or flashy. It isn’t built on programs or platforms. But rather, it’s built on faithful presence like Christ modeled. One that stays, listens, and responds.
And it all began with a simple conversation on the light rail.
Meet Lorry & Shelby
A Beginning No One Could Have Planned
Lorry’s husband, Steve, met a young man named Patrick on his commute, a refugee working two jobs, while navigating life in a new country. This encounter opened the door to a friendship with Patrick’s family, which led to discovering an entire apartment complex filled with newly arrived refugee families.
The kids were behind in school after years of disrupted education. So Steve began tutoring. Then Lorry joined. Then a young man living with them. Then a few more volunteers. Before long, 26 kids were crammed into a small community room with eight tutors – “beautiful chaos,” as Lorry calls it.
Around that same time, Shelby had just moved to Phoenix from Minnesota, where she had already been involved in refugee resettlement work. She carried a heart for these communities long before she arrived in Arizona. When a mutual friend heard she was looking for ways to stay connected to refugee ministry, he introduced her to Steve and Lorry. She stepped into tutoring almost immediately, and her presence added a new layer of depth and momentum to what God was already cultivating.
A Ministry That Grew Like a Living Thing
Nothing about this ministry was strategized. It grew the way living things grow, slowly and organically, in response to what God was already doing.
A woman at church wanted to teach sewing, and so they found sewing machines.
A small group had experience teaching English to Somali adults, and so they started English classes.
A tutor wanted to teach crocheting, and so they planned a Mother’s Day workshop.
A teenage girl wanted to learn basketball, and so Shelby took her to the courts, and Thursday Night Basketball was born.
Today, that basketball night has been running for five years. Students come every week, and volunteers, including Shelby, spend the early evening driving through different neighborhoods to pick them up, since the families no longer all live in the same apartment complex. Timing is always flexible, depending on how quickly the kids can find their shoes, but eventually they all gather under the park lights. They play until the lights shut off at 10 p.m., celebrating birthdays, sharing snacks, and having the kinds of conversations that only seem to happen in the car rides to and from the courts.
What began as tutoring has grown into a web of small, relational ministries:
Tuesday night tutoring
Thursday night basketball
English classes
Sewing and crocheting
Summer craft days
Junior high girls’ nights
Library cart outreach during COVID
Delivering furniture, food, backpacks, books
Attending weddings, baby showers, and late‑night celebrations
Yearly trips to the ballet
Long afternoons of tea and conversation
This is life-on-life ministry.
The Ministry of Showing Up
If there is one theme that runs through everything Lorry and Shelby shared, it’s this: presence matters more than plans.
Many of the cultures that our refugee neighbors come from are highly relational and communal. Trust grows slowly. Flyers and schedules don’t speak the way a knock on the door or a shared cup of tea does. Events ebb and flow. People come when they’re able. Needs arise unexpectedly.
They’ve learned to:
hold plans loosely
adapt to cultural rhythms
offer rides when needed
sit for long conversations
let relationships lead
One of the most powerful stories Lorry shared happened on a day she simply planned to visit a friend. Instead, she found herself helping bomb an apartment for cockroaches, navigating a towed car, meeting a new translator, and facing a cultural dilemma about driving a woman’s husband alone.
She prayed for discernment and chose the path that honored their values. Later, the woman told her, “You are a deen woman”, a religious, honorable woman. Trust strengthened because Lorry chose to slow down and honor what mattered to them.
This is the kind of ministry that can’t be choreographed or scheduled. It can only be lived.
The Horror, the Honor, and the Hope
While some may think that the cultural differences or logistics would be the most difficult parts of this journey, both Lorry and Shelby describe the most stretching parts as the emotional and spiritual weight of entering other people’s pain.
Over time, as trust grew, stories emerged. Stories of trauma. Stories of hardship. Stories that had happened even while they knew the kids. Lorry calls it “the honor and the horror” of being a trusted and listening ear.
There were seasons of exhaustion. Seasons of insecurity. Seasons of wondering if they were doing enough. Seasons of carrying burdens that felt too heavy.
But three years ago, they began praying together every Tuesday morning. And everything shifted.
Prayer became their anchor. It was the place where they cast their worries, remembered why they were there, and entrusted the outcomes to God. They pray specifically, by name, and they’ve watched God answer in surprising and personal ways.
A student they prayed for shows up unexpectedly.
A woman they hoped to see is home that day.
A quiet girl opens up for the first time.
Two boys return to basketball the very week Shelby prayed for them.
These moments feel like God is winking at them and whispering, I’m here. Keep going.
How Their Refugee Friends Have Changed Them
Through these relationships, Lorry and Shelby have come to know God in ways they never expected. Shelby described it this way: she has seen “the depth and the width and the heights of God”, a God far bigger and more expansive than the boxes she grew up with. A God who is present in every culture, every home, every story. “He’s a multicultural God who is in all of these spaces,” she said, “and He loves these people so much.”
Their refugee friends have shaped them in profound ways.
They learned:
to slow down
to listen deeply
to value presence over productivity
to trust God with what they can’t see
to believe that small acts matter
to recognize that God is already at work every place they enter
Lorry describes the joy of doing things “only God sees”, the unseen acts of love that never get posted or praised. Hugging a child. Listening to a painful story. Sitting for hours with a woman who needs company. These moments have become sacred to her.
Shelby echoed that sentiment. Her faith has grown most through prayer, watching God consistently meet them as they simply show up. “He has consistently loved us as we’re just there,” she shared. And that steady love has strengthened her trust in ways she didn’t anticipate.
Looking Ahead With Hope
Their hopes for the future are simple and profound:
that families would know how deeply loved they are
that kids would grow into emotionally healthy adults
that they would navigate life in the U.S. well
that they would pursue college, meaningful work, and stable futures
that they would “pay it forward” someday
that long‑term relationships would continue into their 20s and 30s
that Jesus would walk into their dreams
They’ve already seen the beginnings: graduates returning as young adults, sharing about their lives, their faith, their questions. The long game is unfolding. This is what happens when faithful presence becomes a seed. Eventually, it grows into a story only God could write.
