Peanuts, pine needles, and the odd Pez. That’s what the vacuum sucked out of the minivan recently. Over a decade old, it’s been through California mountain snow storms and Middle East dust bowls, rolled along beachy byways and expansive superhighways. I love it not only because it has served us well, but because it has served others.

A vehicle is a tool, a resource, a means to a service end. Perhaps because I was a stranger welcomed into Senhor Costa’s Land Rover, that our minivan, from its early days as a brand new vehicle, has transported refugees to and from appointments and migrants from bus drop-offs to processing centers, full loads of school friends to AWANA and summer day campers to the swimming pool.

It was already dark when Senhor Costa stopped for us. A highschooler returning home from boarding school, I sat on the side of the road in southern Africa, my head resting on my school backpack. My dad stood, waving down passing cars, hoping one had space for us.

Waving down every passing vehicle wasn’t strange, odd behavior. There were no ‘Don’t pick up hitchhikers’ signs. Most people were hitchhikers back then. Indeed millions were, and still are, hitchhikers. On a continent where car ownership is low, we depended on strangers for rides. My parents had a car, but it could only handle city roads, not washboard tracks and washed out riverbeds. That’s why, when the Land Rover pulled over and Senhor Costa asked us where we were going, it was a gift of God’s grace. We were going the same direction. We jumped in without hesitation.

I learned, in the few hours it took to get to the next city, that the faster you drive on a dirt road with the texture of a washboard, the smoother it is. He overdrove the headlights by many kilometers an hour as we flew through the midnight darkness of the rural landscape.

Senhor Costa, and many others, set the example in my youth. I followed his example when I pulled over and asked a Romanian youth if she needed a ride. Just as our vehicle was a resource to be stewarded in Romania, so any vehicle in any context is a possession to be stewarded, not just owned.

We’ve now been in Washington, DC, over a year. The car drives routine routes– to church, to school, the grocery store, sports practice. Those paths can become ruts, ruts that prevent us from pulling over to render aid or driving down a different lane through a different neighborhood or loading up to serve a neighbor who is a stranger. I know this from experience.

As the newness of a location wears off and we become habituated to a lifestyle, we become comfortable. We are less likely to put ourselves in spaces of discomfort, spaces where we might not feel in control. When you’re new, everything is uncomfortable. Everything’s out of control. That’s why moving is stressful. When the discomfort wears off, we don’t seek it out once again. We congratulate ourselves for finally settling in.

Our minivan is starting to act up. Fortunately, we have a good local mechanic shop who helps keep it in working order. Yet maintenance, interior cleaning, and perhaps an exterior shine are hardly the pinnacle of stewardship. Those are the low bars. Our vehicles are gifts from God that can serve his purposes in so many ways.

Stewardship doesn’t happen by default. Stewardship is cultivated, talked about, and ingrained the culture of a family and community.

As we settle in comfortably,

I’m continually looking for ways to be intentionally uncomfortable,

not stuck in ruts of our making,

stewarding all that God has entrusted to our hands for his service,

even a minivan that emits a ‘needs service’ maintenance light.