Two weeks ago I taught on John 6 and the sovereignty of God. This past week I was given the opportunity to practice what I preached while in Ohio for a mission trip to do backyard bible club type activities and other service work. The repeated mantra of this trip and any mission trip courtesy of Eric Dill; Flexibility. Let me tell you there was a lot of that this past week. The first week of our training we were put into groups based on what we would do in the ‘parties in the park’ which was what the backyard bible clubs were called. I chose bible study because I am not a craft person unless it is sitting in front of a canvas and painting and while I enjoy playing games, teaching was the best fit. That meant I’d need to study Saul’s conversion to Paul in a condensed version of the story we were given. I did that. When the parent meeting happened everyone was given a booklet detailing the schedule and other things like specific roles we would be playing while we were gone. The older kids who were not in PrayZChoir would go to a rescue mission while everyone else went with PrayZChoir to nursing homes to sing on two different nights. I’ll readily admit to not being particularly happy with that assignment. I’ve spent quite a bit of time in nursing homes and they make me uncomfortable. Remember, I said I was able to practice in trusting God’s sovereignty and this was the first step.
We arrived Friday night, set up in the Church we were staying in and then talked about what we’d be doing the next couple of days. Saturday morning we went to the Creation Museum (if you ever visit don’t miss out on the Insectorium, even if you don’t like bugs it is one of the neatest things you will see as is the Planetarium movie). That evening we went to the Red’s vs. National’s game. The game was fantastic, I got to see two home runs and experience my first MLB game. Saturday they had a deal going on where if the Red’s recorded eleven strikeouts you could go to LaRosa’s pizza and get a free one-topping personal pizza with your ticket stub. The neat thing about that was we were supposed to go to LaRosa’s for dinner Thursday so it allowed quite a bit of money to be saved. That alone would have been great but what happened Monday made it even better. Monday we were supposed to go the nation’s largest YMCA but due to the weather the pools were shut down. Instead we went bowling which was paid for with the help of the money saved from the free pizza.
Monday and Tuesday night meant nursing home visits. It was also my first but I hope not my last foray into learning sound tech. I learned about XR cables and snakes and direct boxes and how they all fit together so that noise will come out of speakers. Spending the last several years in the sound booth running Mediashout is one thing; actually knowing how to hook everything up is another. It was a blast learning how it all worked together and I’m grateful for Chris Doss patience as I helped set things up for the performances which by the end of the week would include Tuesday and Thursday in parties in the park. This is the sovereignty I’m talking about. It wasn’t something I had planned on doing or anything really that I would have chosen but it was something God knew I needed to learn. One thing I learned this week was the more I know how to do the better I can serve because I can serve in more roles.
Tuesday afternoon we had our first party in the park. Keep in mind that we had planned on warm weather all week. Tuesday morning it was fifty degrees and windy. Let me tell you it made for a cool day especially when the wind blew. When we started training everyone had a place and a job depending on which group they picked. Come Tuesday we learned that what we’d come up to do wasn’t exactly what we were going to be doing. There was no real recreation, the multiple aged specific Bible lesson became just one large lesson, and crafts was essentially face painting. Instead of teaching I wound up serving hot dogs. People really enjoy hot dogs; we served several hundred of them. There was one particular little boy who couldn’t have been more than six or seven who ate four. Like I said, it wasn’t what I had expected to do, I had planned on teaching.
Thursday was much the same, I wouldn’t be teaching, in fact I didn’t really have a specific job other than helping set stuff up. The day was much warmer, a toasty eighty-three degrees. It didn’t take but about ten minutes for me to find something to do; I played basketball. One of the things we were supposed to do was engage people in the park and talk with them. I am not an outgoing person and would rather avoid talking to strange adults; actually I’d rather avoid talking to strangers over the age of about fourteen. So when an eleven year old walked into the park headed to the basketball court with a ball in his hand, I followed. That was how I met Jaieer. The next hour and a half was spent playing basketball on and off, with Jaieer, some other young boys that wondered over and Jaieer’s older brother Junior. I have no problem engaging children and teenagers in conversation, I do it for a living and at Church, so it was easy. The basketball was just a handy tool that gave me an avenue to talk about the Church we were there helping.
The thing about Thursday was I never had the chance to formally present the gospel to Jaieer. This is where the talking about God knowing who He draws to himself and our responsibility in telling people anyway comes into play. I had to trust that the information I gave Jaieer about the church we helped and my actions of taking the time to play a simple game with him were in the hands of the God I was there representing. Not seeing a resolution isn’t the easiest thing to do. I have absolutely no way of knowing the results of what happened last Thursday. But as hard as it was to leave the park without knowing I’m grateful to have an opportunity to put into practice the very thing I talked about needing to have two weeks ago. Trust in the God who saved me and knowing that regardless of what the outcome is, I fulfilled my responsibility. I can’t save Jaieer no more than I can save anyone else, I can only tell people about Christ. It’s God who will do everything else.
Before I end I’d like to say thanks to the ladies who kept us fed and in clean clothes Making breakfast, lunch, and dinner for fifty-four people wasn’t easy but you did it. Thanks Chris Doss for showing me the ropes of sound equipment. Thanks to Eric, Terry, and Chris for allowing me to come. It wasn’t a week I’ll soon forget and I’ve certainly been changed by it.
