Celebration

Ok, so I have decided that no more than a few times each month I can write a post about something that I see outside my job that either entertains me or perplexes me, or maybe both, but still relates in a distant cousin kind of way to my job.  I watched the Celtics beat the Lakers last night. It was a pretty good game. The thing that really struck me was how intense these guys get.  2 guys surround Kobe Bryant as he gets off a shot. It goes in and the crowd goes wild. Kobe runs up and down the court letting out a shout of victory like he just killed an elephant with his bare hands. But he didn't.  He did what they pay him to do. He made the shot under pressure. No extra money, that was part of the deal. It seems to be a trend in sports to celebrate after making a great catch in football or making a good tackle, then running around the field by themselves so everyone knows who did it.  So you tackled the guy with the ball. Good. You know that paycheck you get every week in large amounts?
Imagine if we did that in our everyday lives. I am standing in a group of people to pray for a missionary going out to another country. I lead the prayer. Out of everyone in the group that could do it, it was me. I stepped up and made the play. Will everyone know it was me? Right after I lead the prayer for sending a missionary out I leave the group and run around the church yelling at the top of my lungs as my co-workers run after me and tackle me to celebrate.  Well, I guess that does happen in some churches.

Donating Stuff

Recently our church held a textbook drive for Africa. We had this idea that at the end of the school year we could collect un-wanted textbooks to send to Uganda and Rwanda where resources are more limited.  I did this a year ago on a trip to Rwanda. I collected music books from UCF students to take to Rwanda so they could begin a music study library.  We advertised well for our book drive, I thought. The city was behind us in helping promote an event at the towncenter where we collected textbooks. It was great. Our parishoners brought books. Mostly great. Here is the part I don't get. You sit at home thinking, "the church is looking for textbooks to Africa, what do I have that would help?" Then you look through your old books, the ones you thought you might refer back to later, but now we have the internet and it is faster, so you never do. Then you find the books next to those, the ones that make you think "When did I get that? I wonder if the church can use them?"

In sorting the books, we did not use all that were donated. Honest mistakes most of them. Rwandan students probably don't want to learn American History, or American Literature, or Florida science, but then there were the others. A few books from the "Left Behind" series, a few classics like "The Odyssey", and "Tom Sawyer". None of these made my favorite list. But these next ones made my top 3. Here they are.

Hello African students. The church in America wishes to send you a book about a scary statue protecting the people. Don't be scared, he's nice. (You had to see the cover on this one to appreciate it.)

To the school in Africa, we in America thought you might like this book about Eddie Bear. He is a detective and he is cute and cuddly. (This book is 580 pages in small type!)

For the science class in Rwanda. Here is a small book about big storms that destroy our homes in America. Enjoy!

And I dont have a picture of this last one so it gets honorable mention..."How to Live With Your Cat".

There is no mention of Lions or Cougars, the only cats people over there worry about living with.

911 Emergency

Our church has a preschool. It is a great preschool. Recently our preschool was named in the Orlando Sentinel one of only 11 preschools in the county with a perfect score. I am not really sure what the perfect score entails but it really isn't important to this story. Some years ago, before the perfect score, we had an incident. Our church boasts what could possibly be the largest fenced-in church playground on the east coast, maybe in the world. When the children need to use the rest room, they may go in twos, if they are four years old, into the fellowship hall where the rest rooms are. It is adjacent to the playground and mostly visible to the teachers. On one particular day, two curious children wanted to expand their learning experience by seeing what would happen if they dialed 911 from the phone inside. They immediately hung up when the operator answered. I am sure they were satisfied knowing somebody answered the phone, but were sadly mistaken in thinking hanging up ended the ordeal.
Thanks to the response of Winter Springs Police and Fire rescue, within 5 minutes we had several emergency trucks and vehicles in our parking lot. Most of us were worried wondering what had happened and who needed the services of this many vehicles. We soon found out they were responding to a caller who was unable to complete the call, so they sent everyone. Nice.
It didn't take a detective to discover who had made the call. All order was quickly restored to the preschool and snacks were served to all. The next day the director asked me to speak to the children at chapel and let them know of the importance of false alarms to the Fire or Police. It was agreed on that because I was a man it could come across a bit more stern. I prepared my talk. I knew I had to address the issue. Check. I knew I had to be on their level. Check. I knew I had to be brief. Check. I was ready for anything.
As I began the discussion, I was proud of how smart these little guys could be. I just needed to drive home the point so they would understand. I told them if they call 911 and the fire and police men come here to the church, it could be a problem for their homes. "Who will get the bad guys at their homes if all the firemen and policemen are somewhere else?" I asked them. Without hesitation a small voice from the front row says "Jesus."
Well played, I thought, I had no response for that.