February 16th, 2011
This morning we cleaned out the kid’s playgrounds some more, raking and sweeping away stones and glass, rolling away the last palm logs. We also cleaned up the ministry center, scrubbing floors and pillars to prep them for paint. I had the privilege of starting some burn fires for trash and plant matter. I like it because it’s acceptable to start a fire pretty much anywhere.
The after-lunch activities consisted of quiet time for me, and then the guys got together to talk about plans for our man-time tomorrow, as well as put together a skit for Wednesday night service.
This evening we attended the Wednesday night service and put on a skit. The skit was based on Galatians 5:9 – “A little yeast works it’s way through the whole dough.” As a couple small groups of people are happily chatting away, one person with a bad attitude comes in and distrupts one other person’s attitude, rubbing off on them. The antagonist keeps walking past, but the bad attitude that infected the one other person trickles down through the everyone else, until the whole crowd is antagonizing each other and having bad attitudes. At this point another person walks on scene, scopes out what’s going on, and gives a big hug to the first person that was initially infected with the bad attitude. That same person shows a softening in heart and turns around and gives a big hug to the person that his bad attitude rubbed off on. Soon everyone in the crowd has made amends and they come and hug the original antagonizer, whose heart also softens.
At the end of the skit, I gave a short message explaining the skit and a short teaching about how each moment in the day we have the ability to influence the community around us. Derek gave me Proverbs 18:21 -“The tongue has the power of life and death; those who love it will eat its fruit.” We can choose to exhibit with our words and actions a spirit or attitude that gives death to people aro und us or gives them life. Jesus came to earth to give us life, and in striving to live like him we too should be conscious of taking initiative to give life to our brothers and sisters around us.
On the business side of things… I’m technically not fully funded, I’m remaining on the race by promise to pay any remaining balance by the end of the final month. Right now that balance is about $4,000. Please help me pay it down by donating! Also, for security reasons I’ll be out of contact for the month of March. No news is good news.
