I met Cuba Gooding Jr.!! - Explore Archived World Race Alumni Blogs

Hello friends!!

My teammates and I were at the mall the other evening. The plan was for Ashley, Chandler, and Cassie to watch a movie and Jennilee and myself would walk around and do a little shopping. Jennilee and I were waiting in line at Cinnabon and there were two dark skinned men standing in front of us. The outspoken one was trying to communicate in English with the man behind the counter. All he wanted was for his bun to be heated up. It was actually humorous watching this take place as the man behind the counter understood very little English. From the profile view, I noticed the man looked like Cuba Gooding Jr. (from Radio, Jerry Maguire, Snow Dogs, etc 🙂 I leaned over to my teammate and mentioned that he looked like the actor. I couldn’t get a good view of his whole face. As we stood there staring and debating whether or not it was him, a man came up with a pen and paper but was shooed away by 2 large white men. It had to be him I thought! The man then successfully paid for his heated up bun and was just about to pass us. Now, I’m not too outgoing and I don’t typically talk to strangers if there is a high risk for embarrassment…and there would be if I was wrong about who he was. But I took a leap of faith anyhow… and I just leaned into his path and looked right at him and said: Hi, I’m sorry, you are?…and his answer….Cuba Gooding. I was right! He asked how are you as he passed and I answered with good…how are you? I don’t think he was expecting a question back or even wanted one really, but he turned back towards us and said he was doing good. Then he asked where we were from…the states, I answered. Then he asked what we were doing here. I told him about our missions trip to 11 countries in 11 months. He thought it was cool and said he’s met a lot of missionaries in his time there. He finished the conversation with “God bless you”. As he was leaving I asked for a picture. He turned slowly and mentioned that he’d been saying no but if we had a camera and could do it quickly he’d agree. I nervously and excitedly dug around my purse for my camera…

We also had the opportunity of going to the Bon Jovi concert in Bucharest last week. It was pretty fun. We met up with another team from our squad. We got there when the gates opened and closed the place down! Lol There were 55,000+ people there! And we even made the evening news! Check out the link here: RomanianNewsChannel

All of this got me thinking…

I was so excited when I met Cuba Gooding Jr. My hands were trembling and my voice quivered as I talked to him! At the concert, we shouted and hollered and jumped around! What if we always got that excited when we entered the presence of God?? What if we trembled in excitement when we talk with our Maker? What does Bon Jovi have on God? What does a Hollywood actor have on God? Nothing! Yet we sit in service after service with the look of sheer boredom etched across our faces. We say our ho-hum prayers out of obligation or tradition. We can quote line after line of Jerry Maguire yet we struggle to quote a few lines from the Bible.

Why is it so hard? I don’t have the answers. I can’t tell you why sometimes I’d rather go watch a movie than sit and read my Bible. I can’t tell you why sometimes I’d rather talk to a friend than talk with God. Getting star struck when meeting a celebrity isn’t wrong. Shouting out lyrics at a concert isn’t wrong. I just pray that we can all find the same joy of those two things when we enter into the presence of God. There’s nothing like it!!! Enjoy the fun and random times in life…but also enjoy the God moments! The moments where God shows off what He’s good at (which is everything!) Soon after…you’ll realize that those God moments are everywhere!

they happen in the Philippines when building a home for someone living in the slums….