Wednesday Woes

I cringe when I am asked to do something or to go somewhere on Wednesdays. Wednesdays are my usually busy days. I was called this past Tuesday by one of three writer friends to have lunch with the two others. I had to politely refuse. Wednesday mornings I’ve committed myself to working at the Chestnut Ridge Historical Society. This week it was absolutely necessary because I needed to collect the key to open the building for Saturday. I’d volunteered to be docent for the facility. I had extra pressure this past Wednesday. I got a call from another dear friend and travelling companion to go with her for a doctor’s appointment in West Virginia. I felt really bad, but I was committed elsewhere and had to refuse.

The usual amount of work was waiting at the historical center. Cataloguing new items, recording obituaries and filing them away, as well as the other various and sundry things that needed completed. It always seems there is just enough that we never get finished. There is always another project that needs tackled or that we look for things that need improving. Much of the time it is rearranging books and archival storage boxes to create more room or to allow more things to go on display. We have some ledgers and items that haven’t seen the light of day in years.

I relaxed for a bit of time before I hustled off to work the van ministry for Wednesday evening prayer meeting and teen youth group. Our teens and youth are a vital part of our church ministry and an outreach into our community. The van provides needed transportation for many. It’s necessary to have a driver and chaperone. It was our Youth Pastor and me who answered the call. He drove when we picked up one older gentleman who no longer drives and the teens. He and I thought it was important that he knows where these kids live. Often as Wednesday evening there are more who need a ride home after they’ve been dropped off. On the return trip we had 9 teen riders and the older man. I drove and our youth Pastor sat in the back with the kids. It was a great time for him to have personal time interacting with them and not in a large group.

The van loop takes about 75 minutes total. As I pulled into the church parking lot, I glanced at the clock and thought we’d made it home early. When I said something to Pastor, he said. “I hate to burst your bubble, but I haven’t reset the clock.” We’d arrived right on time 10pm. Oh well…

 

Busy Tuesday

I’ve been sorting through things in my basement with the intention of having a friend who hauls away scrap and junk to divide and sell for cash to make ends meet. He’s a good guy and a help to me. I began the task of cleaning the basement about a week ago. This cleaning was really thorough and much deeper than before. It wasn’t my usual rearrangement of items and looking for a way to store things more effectively to give me more room to store more junk, but it isn’t to the point where I sweep and cleanup the dirt and debris from my firewood. This was getting rid of the large pieces that have cluttered my cellar for years. I evaluated things that were stored overhead in the basement rafters since I bought the house thirty-five years ago. There were still things that the original owners had stored there from the building of the house.

I figured that if I had no need in 35 years, they needed to go. I tossed out used pieces of scrap copper and brass from plumbing projects. I threw out aluminum cans, soffit scraps, carpet edging, and door trim; all gone. There were several old “stereos and speakers” from the kids. The radios worked, but not the CD players and speakers. He was willing to take them, so bye-bye. I sent away aluminum handles, pieces of pipe, some was chrome covered and whatever other metal that was taking up room. There were steel rods from a baby crib and half dozen metal rails for beds that were too bent to support the bed slats, box springs, or mattress.

I passed on to him several nearly worn-out, damaged and corroded chisels too far gone to save. Several of the items that had been stored with the chisels in my damp basement were too crusted in rust to be recognizable. I gave him several golf clubs, some wire fencing, and old door handles with their locks and opening mechanisms. I got rid of several of the flimsy aluminum flag poles and an exhaust pipe that miraculously appeared in my yard one summer. (I don’t always get a dirty diaper or a dozen red roses tossed into my yard.)

After he left, I revisited my neighbor who made trim for my handmade Pollyanna board. (His giant, black mastiff growlingly greeted me again.) Now, I’m hoping to have another friend assemble the trim to make an edging for my game board.

 

Ukrainian Gospel

Our church accepted another task from Seedline and The Bearing Precious Seed. We have in the past helped to fold, correlate, assemble, staple, trim, and pack the Gospel of John and Romans, KJ Versions that have been translated into many different languages. Those copies of the Gospel have been shipped for distribution in those countries. It is a way to get the hope of the Good News of salvation, redemption, and the promise of eternal life through the belief of Jesus Christ as Savior. It’s been a win-win deal all around. The Seedline project gets free labor and our church becomes an active member in sharing the Gospel and in all actuality we extend our missionary endeavors to those far off lands. In the past, I imagine that we’ve assembled John and Romans in more than a dozen languages.

Initially, we thought that we were going to assemble the Gospel literature in the Thai language, but because of a urgent need, we actually were putting together John and Romans in the Ukraine language. It was the first reliable translation in Ukrainian. Before this the biblical translations were loose and unreliable or were written in the Russian language. Because of the current situation, that Russian version was unacceptable for the people of Ukraine and if other translations fell short of the truth, both were unacceptable and one was unwelcome. Bearing Precious Seed was receiving a flood of incoming calls from missionaries in countries surrounding Ukraine pleading for copies. Refugees were pouring into their countries and the missionaries wanted to be able to offer the hope and peace to these men, women, and children who were leaving their possessions and homes behind, people who were seeking refuge from the atrocities of war, death, and destruction.

Friday evening we gathered to unload the supplies and machinery. It’s becoming old hat for us. We were able to do unload and set up an assembly line rather quickly. Forty-two people gathered to do the work. Men, women, and children came. Children 8 years old, teens, and the elderly like me began the tasks assembly. Everyone chose an age appropriate task to do. Six people to a table, conversations with the others that you meet only superficially during church services occur. An added benefit is that you become more closely bonded with brothers and sisters in Christ and know more about them.

Saturday morning another 40 plus people showed up to work, in spite of the snowy, blustery weather. Again things moved smoothly and we were done in record time. Twelve thousand and twenty-two Gospels were assembled. We were finished an hour ahead of our normal time. Now we can only pray that the Gospel in Ukrainian is able to be speedily and safely shipped

 

Canoe You Come Out and Play with Me

More than fifty years ago while I was stationed at the Naval Training Center in Orlando, Florida, chief petty officer Fuller decided to retire. He’d accepted the position of the Park Ranger of a newly established state park on the Saint Johns River. It wasn’t officially opened, yet but he’d invited several of us naval corpsman to spend t weekend there to check it out. The park could only be accessed by boat, and no motorized vehicles were permitted on the island. We six corpsmen were to be test campers and to look for anything not finished or any improvements that might be needed.

We needed three canoes to carry all to the island, but were only able to borrow or rent two. It meant instead of one trip with three loaded canoes, we had to make several to ferry all of the supplies and people to the island. Once in the park, we hurried to set up tents and made the campsite ready Three of us decided to try our luck at fishing and that’s was where the problem started, a fourth person decided to tag along. He’d been drinking beer while we were driving to the park, unloading supplies, and while we were setting up camp. Let’s just say, he was feeling no pain. Three of us tried to slip away unseen, but the fourth was sober enough to know what we were trying to do and followed us to the canoes.

I was the poor unfortunate soul that ended up with him as a passenger. He’d brought more cans of beer and wasn’t interested in fishing, but may have been a blessing in disguise for him. The fish that we were catching were gar; ugly, ferocious-looking, toothy gar. With my passenger so intoxicated, I’m sure that he would have lost a finger had he caught one.

The section of the Saint Johns River we were fishing was shallow and murky. It wasn’t a place that I’d choose to go for a swim, but that almost happened when my inebriated passenger decided his bladder was full and stood up in the canoe. His aim was good and voided into the water over the gunwales of the canoe, but his wobbling stance kept me busy trying to prevent the canoe from tipping over. I was upset that I couldn’t stop paddling long enough to smack him beside his head without risking that I’d join him. I was disgusted and when he sat back down, I paddled back to shore spending the rest of the afternoon by the campfire.

 

Loneliness

Sometimes that specter of dark emptiness slips silently into your house, sits down across from you, and stares deeply into your soul. It fills your life with self doubt and leaves an even larger chasm of cobwebs and shadows. Loneliness has a gloominess that is difficult to overcome. The darkness and deep shadows of loneliness prevail with only occasional sparkles of light. The fleeting flickers come from bright memories that manage to slide through the chinks from the past to mock and to tease. Those thoughts whet the soul making the darkness more severe when that instant of hope flickers out and disappears. The feeling of loneliness returns, like a punch in the gut with a cruel and savage blow. The blow is meant to dishearten and rob the person of all peace, joy, and happiness.

Left without direction, the enemy attacks with an all out assault, tempting on many fronts. Whether the outlet is alcohol, drugs, pornography, or even by tempting people with suicide to escape the pain and the feeling of hopelessness, it’s the bondage that the enemy offers.

I tried to research the word lonely or loneliness in the Bible. It’s not there, but those words cannot be found, instead God says in Hebrews 13;5  “Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have: for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.” God also says in Proverbs 18:24 “A man that hath friends must shew himself friendly: and there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother.”

Loneliness is like deep troubled water. It’s murkiness tries to drown out all peace and joy, but God gives a peace and a joy that supersedes all that the enemy would throw at us. Jesus tells us, “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. John 14:27

I was feeling a bit lonely and thinking about what to write as I left the house Tuesday morning when a flock of geese flew northward overhead to their nesting grounds and the thought hit me, why when they fly south calling with the same sound does it cause me to feel sad? And why when the geese wing their way north does it cause me to smile causing me to feel happy? It’s simply God sharing His plan for all and our hope for tomorrow.