Long hot summer…

I rode my bicycle back from the church the long way, uphill, into a big headwind and dropped into the skatepark at the end of my ride. There was no one there, which is curious but not impossible on a hot summer afternoon, so I turned for home when I heard my name called out. I circled back and found a group of our younger teens and grade school kids out working on bicycles in their yard. “Hey, do you know how to get a bicycle inner tube out…?” the inquiry came from one of our grinning Musketeers and I was sure I had the answer so waited confidently for him to finish, “…of a really tall tree?”

He pointed skyward and sure enough a 20” inner tube was hanging high up on a branch, “Yeah, that’s an easy one. You just climb into your time machine, go back an hour and don’t throw it up there!” I offered a bit disappointed not to exercise some real mechanical solution he could learn from. He nodded in agreement as they all took turns throwing various objects at the stranded rubber tube.

“We playin’ hoops again this Friday?” Two brothers took a break from the inner tube rescue to ask about Recreation Night at the church again this week. Some parents are being more aggressive about not letting their kids hang at the skatepark and I miss them at the grill but completely understand so I am trying to open up Fridays at the church for them. It’s the same format, grilling and drinks but with some basketball thrown into a safer environment.

“Sorry, I’ve got a wedding rehearsal Friday night – we’ll have to play next week again,” was my honest reply. They were visibly disappointed.

I finally started back when I saw some guys on the skate surface and I rolled through asking about hotdogs for the night – they were fairly indifferent. Then I saw my friend and President of the Black Brothers Tree Climbing Club – also our youngest Musketeer – and I rode over. “Hey, that wasn’t you the cops came down and harassed for climbing this tree was it?” He stared blankly which is odd because if he doesn’t have something to say – he’ll make something up!

“No, that was some guys who were up there smoking weed!” Two older teens enlightened me as they sat under the pavilion.

“What? There were a bunch of guys doing doobage way up in that tree and the cops snagged them?” I asked legitimately surprised because sometimes I feel like I have seen it all but hadn’t ever seen that…

They laughed, “Yeah, I guess there were about three of them up there and smoke was rolling out of the tree so someone called the cops and they came wandering in under the tree and the guys were like, ‘$^#*&! It’s the cops!’ so the cops snagged’em!”

I had to laugh along with them because let’s face it – that’s pretty funny – and brings a whole new level of stupidity to getting high! “You are smarter than that aren’t you!” I directed at our youngest Musketeer as he was nearby taking this in and his wide-eyed negation of that possibility assured me that he was. Then from way up in the tree I heard my name yet again and found our little “Gabby” amongst the leaves of the upper branches. “Hey, you’re back! How’s your dad? Is he deploying?”

“In March, but that could change at any time,” she returned, “I can’t eat here tonight because I have a wedding rehearsal AND I have to get dressed up!” she snarled.

“Well, the good news is that you will get better food at the rehearsal than you will off the grill.” I encouraged.

“My Nanna is doing the cooking,” she offered.

Visions of a bountiful homemade spread came to my mind and it was a happy place but only briefly as I drifted into, “That sounds really good…”

“Nope, she sucks when it comes to cooking,” Gabby stating so matter-of-factly, as she swung from a branch, that I nearly fell off my bicycle for wanting to laugh so hard! I had to say good bye wishing her luck for the evening ahead!

We returned an hour later and aside from our hungry younger set – the teens really didn’t seem to care except for a handful of the famished. Ronda brought some brownies that garnered high praise from the crew. Agathe inquired as to the consistency of the brownies – more cake-like or more fudgy/gooey –  and the answer came back, “They are perfect!” from a young man who made up a number of excuses to revisit the pavilion for more.

“When you see her, please tell her thank you!” was another sincere comment on the brownies and as hungry as these younger guys get – they are pretty rough food critics!

Gloria’s cookies were melt-in-your-mouth as usual and Nick’s popsicles hit the cold spot on a warm evening but…appetites are down and interaction last night for the larger group was almost non existent. This isn’t “blue moon” rare but the vibe last night was borderline – “What are you doing here?”

It has been a long year of GTP starting in March vs. May so it may just be time to consider pulling back a bit and reaching out to those young people who are interested through Friday’s basketball and fellowship.

I’ll ask God.

The nice thing about having God on your side is when he does the “cooking” – it’s going to be a lot better than Nanna’s!

I guess we’ll have to see what he whips up!

Servant of Christ

Randall

The Valley

“My favorite Bible verse is, ‘The Lord is my shepherd.’” Our eight year old Musketeer shared unprompted at the grill Wednesday night.

“Hey, Psalms 23, that’s a great one! Try Psalms 40 also, that’s one of my favorites.” I returned to him.

He inquired of me, “Have you ever read the Bible?”

I laughed out loud, “Occasionally, or do you mean cover to cover?” He clarified that he was talking about the entire Bible from front to back and I responded in the affirmative. Then he cocked his head to the side as he tends to and a light came on in his eyes – as it tends to - and he brought forth this bold proclamation…

“I have read it six times!”

Agathe, who is the sage listener to all the stories from the younger grill crowd nearly fell out of her lawn chair and she had to “grill” him as she is the analytical one, “Do you actually mean from page 1 to page 2,016?”

The little guy didn’t flinch and after just a moment’s reflection he stated confidently, “No, not like that. I have a smaller Bible.”

I wanted to bust out laughing but not at anyone – just in a joyful way because a young child should have a “smaller Bible” built to scale and filled with a big beautiful God who leads them into safe places and faith and wisdom and peace through this crazy world…

And I think this little guy may be on that journey – with his smaller Bible – and his great big heart.

So if you want to leave this GTP Update warm and fuzzy read no further as the rest is troubling and graphic in its accounting.

“I have to watch five _ _ _ _ing kids all under _ _ _ _ing years old! _ _ _ _ that! You can’t even understand a _ _ _ _ing thing they are saying to you!” The young girl stated as her own toddler of about 18 months “played” in the dirt between the picnic tables under the skatepark pavilion. Thing is, it really isn’t dirt, it’s just kind of a silt of cigarette ashes supplemented with cigarette butts and the clear plastic wrappers off packs of cigarettes with the occasional plastic pop top thrown in.

Trying to quit the smokes?

You would quit now if you saw this sweaty, little toddler covered in a black film of this fine dusty ash as she picked up a cigarette butt and one of the other teenage girls said, “I think that is a no-no,” as the toddler tried to put it in her mouth.

Why God has entrusted this child – she is beautiful even under the ash – to this calloused foul mouthed girl-child mother I do not know.

Why in God’s creation ANYONE would trust her to watch their young children – I CAN’T BEGIN TO FATHOM!!

I had crossed paths with this mother earlier in the day as I shopped for our grill supplies and noticed a larger group than normal on the skatepark for early afternoon in 90 degree heat. I swung in to remind them about the evening’s grilling to which they asked “It’s Wednesday?” I hadn’t ever seen this young mother before and my first impression was her actively cursing out one of our guys for flicking cigarette ashes on her purse – which was laying in the “dirt” on the ground near her little girl who was already playing there under the pavilion.

In the same clothes I would see her in later that evening.

Our guy broke her string of profanity by interjecting, “This is Randall, he comes down here on Wednesdays and grills hotdogs for everyone.”

His interruption worked as she stopped cursing and I could see the light of “entitlement” come on in her eyes and then she yelled, “Hey, I can’t believe she let you touch her,” as a big gentle young man picked up the dirty child in his sweaty arms, “Usually ‘bout now she’d be smackin’ you upside the head!” Then she turned to our guy she had been cursing out and pleaded with him for a hit off his cigarette.

I went home.

So after I encouraged everyone many times that night to come and get a dog – we had a bunch – this girl finally made her way to the grill with the last bun in her hand but the dogs were gone. She turned to her trailing, wobbling little daughter and said, “Here then, have some bread,” and handed the little toddler the bun and walked off.

The Holy Spirit has been with us at Woodgrove Parish.

What are we going to do with that power?

How far away do you need to go to be on a mission field?

Servant of Christ

Randall

I’ll meet you half way

“Are there any more popsicles?” The girl asked although she had already eaten one but was otherwise doing a very good job of acting totally disinterested.

“There is one left here in the box and it’s yours for the taking.” I returned happily because I did not want to see it melt in the 93 degree heat.

“Bring it here I’m too lazy to get up!” she commented honestly because she nearly wouldn’t budge as we set up the catsup, mustard, bread and drinks on the very table which she lounged upon.

“Can’t help you with that, you’re going to have to come and get it,” I told her as I turned the ever darkening hotdogs. She snarled this crooked sneer at me and swung her legs down off the table and began heading in my direction from under the pavilion.

I like this girl. I think she has traveled a road. How much of it is paved with her own bad decisions and how much of it has been steamrolled before her – I don’t know – but she is God’s child and she has a tough tenderness lurking beneath the piercings that denotes an honest soul. “Tell you what,” I said picking up the box with the last purple popsicle in it, “I’ll meet you half way.”

Her disgruntled expression was already relaxing and her face sprouted a big smile, “Sorry, won’t do, you have to make it all the way.”

We met half way so I knew she was joking as she gladly ate the final frozen treat.

Here is the thing about these skatepark people – they won’t meet you half way – and I like that. They won’t accept half way commitments. They won’t abide the sense that they matter to you sporadically or that they matter when we get our picture in the paper or end up on TV with them. What they like is people showing up when I am gone on vacation and realizing this isn’t a handful of people who care but rather a community of faith they matter to.

Motorcycling in the Rockies is pretty cool – literally standing on a 30 foot snow drift in Wyoming cool – but what I like most is kicking around the challenges of life with my family together out there. I mentioned to my brother Andrew that conventional evangelism may balk at the fact that we haven’t realized any attendance in church from these young people at the park.

“Every single one of those kids is a member of your congregation!” came his immediate passionate reply as if to say that anyone who would like to argue that point would have to go through him – which I tried once and can say it would be a losing proposition for most mere mortals.

So, thank you Rhoda for the cool popsicles, thank you Gloria for the cookies! One little girl had a stack of cookies in her little hand such that she could barely balance them – but she joyously ate every crumb! Thank you Steve for the hotdogs! Thank you to everyone who prays and donates resources and time to these young people!

Thank you for proving we are willing to go all the way with them! They are a part of our fellowship joined by your selfless efforts and energy!

God Bless

Servant of Christ

Randall

BTW – Our little friend with the big stack of cookies asked, “When you go back to your church could you pray for my dad Brian – B-R-I-A-N. He is going back into the military. I am going to spend the next week with him so I won’t be here Wednesday.”

Let’s do that for her please and continue to remember all those serving our nation here and abroad.