Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Paonia, Colorado

I'm going to set aside any attempt to write a clever or well-crafted post (which is probably evidence of my prideful nature anyway) and give you all a quick update on our missions trip.

For the uniformed, I am with our church's youth group on a service project in a small western Colorado town, Paonia. We're leading a Vacation Bible School in the mornings and doing community outreach in the evenings in the park.

A couple quick impressions. The first morning of VBS, Pastor Rob closed in prayer and said, "Thank you for sending your Son to earth." When Rob finished praying, one little boy asked in a loud voice, "God sent His Son to earth?" I realized then and there we had our work cut out for us. Some of the children are from the church, but obviously some have no knowledge of Jesus.

The other thing is, we have a great group of teens. These students genuinely love the Lord. Three of them share their testimony each night at the park and it has been terrific. They each relate their story of how they met Jesus, a bit of the gospel, and how God makes a difference in their lives today. The first night Pastor Rob followed up with some comments and last night J.D., another of our adults, made some closing comments. The Good News is being clearly presented in beautiful Paonia.

I'll try to write more later. Thanks for your support and prayers.

Monday, June 14, 2010

Worth a Thousand Words

The other day I received some terrible news at work. (No, I’m not going to tell you so don’t ask.) My friends could tell something had happened by my conversation—cubicles are unforgivingly public.

One friend called over the cubicle wall, “Everything okay?”

“No,” I replied, “but I don’t want to talk about it.” Nice, huh?

I was so glad he asked, even though I didn’t want to talk about it. Especially to a “guy.” Sorry, Randy.

But then Kris came over and offered a hug. I took it. Didn’t say a word, but boy did that hug help.

Then today, I heard sniffles coming over the painfully public cubicle wall. “Tina” was on the phone, obviously upset about something.

In times past I might have been concerned, but unsure what to do. But today I knew exactly what to do. When Tina got off the phone I walked over and gave her a hug. I knew Tina well enough to do so, of course. I wouldn’t hug just anybody. (She and I had a conversation a while back about being “criers” so I knew it was okay.)

She didn’t speak. She just cried. And I just hugged. And somehow that said everything.