Homily on Baptism

Today our service is a bit different than usual. There’s no sermon, or rather the sermon is coming in a couple of different pieces. The first is a word on baptism.

“Short attention span. Require pictures.” Short attention span. Require pictures. That’s what the observers of culture are starting to say about US! That’s bad news for preachers, I think. And I’m not convinced we have totally capitulated, but we are clearly in danger. Short attention span. Require pictures.

We are becoming a people who have to have things now…or at least very quickly. As our attention spans are decreasing from the speed and pace of the technology in front of us, we have no patience to follow something longer than a few minutes. It has to be quick.

And, we are more and more connected with the visual, or at least with the sensory. Don’t tell me something, let me taste it, touch it, hear it, show me a picture of it, or a U-tube video or a movie clip.

So how to ever understand something like a sacrament? It’s a big word. It connects with the word “sacred.” And actually, in word origin it connects with “mystery.” A mystery, a sacrament. In our tradition, there are two official “sacraments,” the Lord’s Supper and baptism.

But what is it? Frederick Buechner says “a sacrament is when something holy happens.” I sort of like that. So if baptism is a sacrament, it is experiential, it is when something holy happens. It is when God does something.

Okay. I’m going to be quick! Here’s my contention. That in baptism, we find the whole gospel of Jesus Christ. The entire good news, boiled down, consolidated into this one holy happening. Baptism. Here are six words:

God. We baptize in the name of the One God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Father (God, Creator), Son (Jesus Christ, God’s very presence come to tangible, historical earth to set things right between people and God), Holy Spirit (God’s ongoing presence with us). So in baptism, we experience all of God. In fact, baptism is more about God than it is about us.

Cleansing. Water washes us clean, takes the dirt off. As the waters of baptim run over us, whether in drops or being dunked under water, it signifies the washing away of sin (forgiveness, not once but over and over), and rising to new life in Christ (death could not defeat him). No matter who we have been, what we have done, in Christ we receive forgiveness and new life.

Identity. Some of us spend our whole lives wondering who we are, deep down, who am I? It is in baptism we receive our identity. You are someone whom God loves. That’s who you are, someone God loves! Forget your profession, education, possessions or wherever you take your primary identity from. In baptism, God is stepping towards you and saying “You belong to me.” That is who you are.

Family. We are baptized not only into Christ, but into Christ’s community, the community of faith. So this room is full of aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, brothers, sisters, a family that stretches around the globe and backwards and forwards in time. Friends who remind us of who we are. A family.

Grace. We do not baptize ourselves. I don’t go to Green Lake and dunk myself and say “Dan, I baptize you now…” No, it comes from outside of ourselves. It comes from God. We are merely responding to finding out something very amazing. God has already acted on our behalf, in the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ, not because we are such good people…but because we aren’t. Grace.

Beginning. Baptism marks the beginning of a relationship with God. It does not mean we have arrived at some destination, but rather the start of a lifelong journey.

It’s pretty quick, but there it is, the whole gospel in baptism: God: Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Forgiveness and new life in Christ. The formation of an Identity. Inclusion in a Community. Grace as a gift. The Beginning of a journey.

Now here is the picture, the visual for you. (walk down and pour water…)

This morning, we get to come to this mysterious and holy celebration to be met by God. (pour water) Through this sign of water, baptism signifies God’s faithfulness, the washing away of sin, and the rising to new life in Christ. In baptism, the Holy Spirit assures us, seals the good news of the gospel. So, through water and the Holy Spirit, we are marked for what God has called us to be, a people who belong to God.

When we baptize children (as we do this morning), we emphasize the fact that God has acted…we are His because He chooses us and loves us…not through our earning or qualifications.

Testimonies

Jesus told his followers to wait in Jerusalem and it is always a difficult thing to try to discern, isn't it? Shall we act, or shall we wait for a work or a sign? Shall we work on doing, or on just being before God? Is God actually leading us or are we just trying to get God to rubberstamp something that we're doing? Are we really responding to something that God started in the first place?

Now that discernment, actually, is really not such a hard thing when it comes to the Families in Service opportunities that we had at Bethany this last summer. The way this happened, friends, is something that I absolutely love. It was something that bubbled up. It was something that would not go away. It was something that the further the conversations about these opportunities went, the more it seemed as though God were clearly leading them.

We called them Families in Service experiences for a couple reasons, but mainly to indicate that they were designed to include our children. We do a lot of things at Bethany and in outreach that are for adults, but these opportunities really were for everyone - adults, marrieds, singles, families, children. Everyone. The whole family at Bethany.

The summer didn't start out because a committee sat down and said, "What can we do?" At least not at first. There were musings that have stretched over a number of years for some people. There was some brainstorming. There were some things that began to unfold as people prayed. Some hard decisions had to be made along the way. The very traditional Vacation Bible School at Bethany...we had to forego in order to take these other opportunities.

And in the end over 500 people from this family at Bethany participated in one way or another. 500. We didn't go to Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and the ends of the earth. But we did go to Queen Anne and Seattle and across Washington and across the world. And we reached out as a community and we found as usual when we reached out instead of finding ourselves heroes or receiving metals of service, we learned an awful lot and we made new friends. And we had the privilege of seeing God at work in some very new ways.

So this morning we have asked three folks to share for a few minutes and begin to tell some of these stories of where they experienced God in this last summer.

Nathan Ives

Hi. My name is Nathan Ives and I'm in 6th grade. Earlier this summer, my family visited World Relief. We learned about refugees, someone who has traveled across the border because of persecution for various reasons.

And we did a refugee simulation with two other Bethany families. Basically, we pretended we were refugees coming from another country. They assigned us the role of a family from Burma and we had to dress up in different clothes.

After that, we went outside and saw what it was like. People stared at us. There were three stations we went to and we were harshly treated. The people were suspicious of us because there were 6 people in our group but only 5 on the official list. So they kept asking us who the 6th person was and whether he belonged to us. That was my brother, Wilson.

We were given a little cup of cold lentils to eat, which was sort of gross. One person tried to take my mom's bracelet in exchange for medicine. After the simulation, we came back to the World Relief office and met a refugee from Somalia who told us his story.

The government had bombed his village and he fled with his cousin, but none of his stuff. He had to drink from puddles and eat leaves and grass on his way to the refugee camp. It made me feel bad for him, and glad that our government wouldn't bomb us.

After living in the refugee camp for a time, Chong was sent to live in Kent while his cousin was sent to live in Australia. I think I saw God in how Chong came to our country not knowing anyone, not having any belongs, and World Relief helped him with that. Got him food and a home.

And the Bible says in Matthew 25 that God will reply, "I tell you the truth. Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me."

Kristin Carlson

My name is Kristin Carlson and my daughter, Ariana, and I attended the Bagels and Bags Family in Service project this summer. And I was really excited to see how homelessness was going to be communicated to this group of very young children - probably most of them were 2 to 5 years old. And I wondered how my 5 year old would absorb this information and what questions she would have, and most of all how was I going to answer this.

And after a great skit on homelessness, I knew that it was going to be a topic of conversation in my home. And as we packed sunscreen and water and tissues into a big Ziplock bag, I was so happy that my daughter was a part of a project to help others. It was a great lesson in being a kind and caring servant of God. And it was the perfect way to cultivate the work of Jesus in a 5 year old.

And her favorite part was coloring a picture that we put into each of the bags. And that was my favorite part, too. I imagined a homeless person opening this bag and seeing this rainbow with a heart at the end of it and my daughter's name on it. And I prayed that it would bring a smile on their face like it brought to mine.

And I was overwhelmed by this topic of how was I going to explain all of this to her. And I took a deep breath and I let God in. And I realized that I didn't need to explain the gravity of homelessness to my 5 year old. And the fact that she was having a positive and fun experience was good enough.

Later, she asked questions such as,

• Why are people homeless?
• How do they become homeless?
• Where do they sleep?

I took that deep breath again and I let God help me. I told her that everybody has a different story, just like we have our own story, and that these people's story ended up that somehow they didn't have a home. And that we should be thankful, and grateful, and lucky that we have a home and beds to sleep in, and that we can help homeless people and that we can pray for them. I told them that God loved them just like He loves us. (I sounded good...thanks to God!)

I know that as my daughter gets older that her questions will become much more complicated, and I know that she will demand more answers. And I also know that God will be there to help me with those answers and to help her.

I am so thankful for that day. God gave me the opportunity to be a teacher, to talk to my daughter about a difficult topic in what I think was the right way, and to give me an opportunity to teach her how to pray for other people. And most of all, He gave me the opportunity to ask for His help, to listen for Him, and to share this special time with Him and with my daughter.

Jim Penney

Hi. I'm Jim Penny. I'm here to share some thoughts with you about my experience with the Urban Impact workday this summer.

Picture this in your mind with me. Our children are ages 9, 11 and 13. It's a beautiful, sunny, hot July morning. The computer is calling their name...all the games. The community pool is calling their name. The popsicles are calling their name. There's cartoons on TV. It's early. We wake them up and say, "Guess what, guys! This is the Saturday morning we're going to go pick up trash and pull weeds at Urban Impact!"

What would you expect their reaction to be?

Aw, Dad, no way!

No. Amazingly, this Saturday morning we joined a group of other Bethany families and kids doing exactly that - pulling weeds and picking up trash - and that was not at all the reaction we got.

Throughout the day I watched a pair of kids walkig through a vacant lot and along the sidewalk searching for garbage while they chatted pleasantly with each other. Another pair were digging energetically in a flower bed full of weeds and sharing a laugh. My 13-year-old video game enthusiast was pushing a lawn mower uphill with all of his might. And a child, unnamed, who absolutely hates cleaning was cheerfully sweeping a sidewalk in front of the building.

At lunch, we shared food and stories. We told jokes. We heard about why the work we were doing really mattered to Urban Impact and to its clients.

The work we did for Urban Impact was needed, it was useful, it was practical. But the way I really experienced God that day was in observing my kids' and the other kids' enthusiastic participation, the community building that we saw taking place, and the way that having an opportunity to serve others affected all of us and more importantly, our kids.

It would have been easy to write a check and hire a gardener. But, at least for us, it was important for our kids to see us getting our hands dirty - quite literally in this case - in service to others, and not just sending money to worthy causes. For us it was the sacrifice of time and energy to show people the love of Christ.

Our kids are generally on the receiving end when it comes to church activities: through Sunday School, the youth group, picnics, camping trips, VBS and all the others. So it's real important for them to be on the giving end sometimes as well. They heard about the good work that Urban Impact does in the community. They knew they were doing something to support that work. Serving others gives them a better sense of their role in the body of Christ and their ability to make a small, but important, contribution to it.

Our family participated in several other service opportunities this summer, and each one was a great community-building experience, and just a great opportunity to build relationships. We spent time working and learning with other Bethany people that we don't normally spend time with. And we also got to know a lot about them in new and deeper ways.

What I took away from our activities in F in S and what I want my children to take with them is a deeper desire to build relationships and engage in service activities that benefit others. The thing I pray for my kids to remember is this, in the end (when the work is over and even if the people they worked with forget their names and their faces and what they did), what they won't forget is the face of Jesus that they have seen in them.

Ken Windus

My name is Ken Windus. This is my wife, Bobbi, and our sons Peter and Daniel. We were a part of a group of 4 families that went to Eastern Washington on a weekend at the end of July this summer. We were hosted by a group called Mending Wings Ministries and their staff, one of which is Emily Mitchell, who grew up in Bethany. Mending Wings works with youth on the reservation.

The vision of the weekend was that we'd spend our time primarily with the staff at Mending Wings. However, in a ministry like Mending Wings that works with youth, the youth are never very far away. In fact, there were teenagers around us the whole weekend. This was nice for me. I'm a high school teacher, and after a few weeks away from teenagers, I was going through withdrawal.

The youth on the reservation have a lot of the same issues and questions that are common to most teenagers. In addition, though, they must deal with the negative stereotypes of Indians on the reservation that inform not only how outsiders view them, but also how they see themselves and each other.

The youth shared that on the reservation, there is a very strong sense of hopelessness and despair. The staff at Mending Wings are helping the youth to understand that they don't need to deny their culture in order to follow Jesus. They can, in fact, embrace their distinctiveness and the way that God has created them for fellowship with Himself and the rest of the body of Christ. It was very encouraging for me to hear some of the youth, in spite of their circumstances, express genuine hope for their future. A hope that is found in following Jesus. And a hope that has been shared with them through the ministry of Mending Wings.

Daniel, what was your favorite part about the worship?

Hearing Cory and the kids drum for worship. When I went to the reservation I learned about how our country has treated native Americans unfairly and how it still causes problems today. Later on this summer, when my family traveled around the West, I was trying to think of the perspective of native Americans, not just the pioneers.

Bobbi Windus

One thing that was challenging for me initially was that we were not going to "do" anything. We weren't doing some big service project. But as we prepared for the trip and I heard from Cory Greaves and the staff at Mending Wings and read the book that they recommended, One Tribe, Many Nations, I began to understand that the youth at Mending Wings did not need what Cory called "a drive-by service project" but that we were being invited - gratiously invited - into relationship. And to come and learn, to listen, hear their stories and their challenges, and their hopes and their dreams, and that our native brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ need to know that their gifts, their experiences, their traditions and their perspectives are important to us...the body of Christ.

On a more personal level, a weekend focused on being rather than doing reinforced lessons that God's been trying to hammer home to me. I'm kind of stubborn, so it keeps coming up again and again. But that, like in the story of Mary and Martha, I need to stop rushing around trying to control things and accomplish things in order to feel significant, and that I need to enjoy sitting and listening, learning and worshipping. And I got to do that this weekend in Yakima.

Janet Moore

Hi, my name's Janet Moore and I'm the director of the Wednesday night dinner program here at Bethany. And I was really excited that the Families in Service didn't forget about the ministry right here at Bethany Presbyterian Church. And Julie's son, Eric, helped organize 11 families - two of which you already heard of this morning - that came and served at the WND three different Weds during the summer.

And we prayed before the families came that it would be really meaningful for the families. We also prayed that it would be really meaningful for our guests. I didn't pray for it to be meaningful for myself, and that's how it ended up at the end of the summer.

I know that it was meaningful for the families because they told me so at the end of their time of serving. You could also see it in their faces when they served. They were serving in the line. The kids chattering together, figuring out how to serve a certain portion that we had deemed was to be served at that time.

And you could see them working together. If two of them had to serve one thing, or if it was a little bit of a complicated something that had to go on a sauce or something, kids were working together. And they were also greeting our guests and being very positive. Many of the guests also were very intrigued with having the whole group behind the table be families from Bethany.

Often, the Bethany folks that come and work on Wednesday night are those we put in the kitchen...Frank doing the dishwashing. Just a variety of things. They're sort of a little bit, maybe, behind the scenes. And the servers at the table are often students from SPU, students from Seattle-U, community folks that have walked by and wanted to volunteer. But I can't often say that the whole table is people from Bethany.

And our Wednesday night guests were really intrigued that many families would give up their evening and come and serve at Wednesday night.

The other thing for the guests is that many of them have been abused at the hands of the church. And so for them to come and witness families working together and watch how parents cared for kids and solved problems. They were very intrigued.

And for me, what touched me the most is a woman that I've been in contact with for the 4 years that I've been here. And she looks a bit odd. She stands out in a crowd, we'll say. And she has told me many stories of riding the metro bus and having people move their children away from her. Or her being in a grocery store and trying to say "hi" to a child, and a parent telling her not to talk to her children. So she feels very rejected.

So at the dinner that Wednesday night, the child in line asked her if she wanted whatever they were serving, let's say peas addressed her directly. And she answered, and talked to the child a little bit. And the child was answering what school they were going to and talking with her a little bit, and she was very excited about that. And she told me immediately with her plate in her hands still, how polite the child and the mother had been with her in the line.

That doesn't seem like a big deal to me. I haven't had that kind of rejection in my life. She was sitting down at a table, and when the dinner started to calm down, this whole family (without knowing it) came and sat at her table. And I looked across the room and she spotted me and she went (thumbs up). She wasn't talking to them. They weren't really talking to her. But she was all thumbs up. And when she left that evening, I said goodnight to her and she said, "Jesus sat at my table today."

And I just wept. And if I start to cry, I'm really not that much of a crying person I don't think, but I ran into the kitchen to Karen Taylor, told her the story, and we both just sat there and cried. And I wasn't expecting, and Karen and I joked, that we didn't pray to be touched by Jesus. We didn't sort of expect it. And yet Jesus was there.

Dustin Hoye

Hi. My name is Dustin Hoye and we just went for a week with this refugee family to help them and have fun. A refugee is someone who leaves his or her country because of war or persecution. And these 5 refugees were at a camp in the Congo and a massacre happened between the Hutus and the Tutsi. Hansanika, the mom, had a gunshot wound in her left arm and two of her babies got killed, and her younger son Bienvenue got shot in the back of leg. And he's going to have surgery cause it isn't going right.

And we played lots of fun games like hide-and-seek with them. I played soccer with the older brother, Alexis.

And we didn't speak their language. They spoke Somalian and French. And they only knew a little bit of English because they went to sumemr school.

And we went with another family to the science center, and we had a lot of fun there. And then the dad got tired, so we went home and we climbed a tree. And the older brother Jagoba climbed like a 15 foot high tree and slid down on this wood pole. And I tried to do it and I just couldn't do it.

And we played in the fountain and we all got really wet and we just loved it. And, with the other family, they made us an African meal. And there was this mashed potato thing that you would eat with your hands.

They had this really good rice and meat with a sauce, and we brought them pizza. And they loved it. And the older brother, Alexis, is e-mailing us just to arrange a sleepover sometime. And God was just with them because they kept going on even though times were hard. And they could have just stopped, but they didn't.

Caroline Plummer

That was Dustin and I'm Dustin's momma. And like I think a lot of us mommas, we want to expose our kids to different things and give them different lessons. And one of my greatest hopes for the Families in Service World Relief outreach project that we did in Kent was for that, for my boys...to get them outside of themselves. To get them out of our very white, privileged, affluent neighborhood. To get them away from their very white school, and to get a taste of real life (sadly, real pain and real tragedy) but just to expand their world view. And so that was my big intention going in.

And, as usual, God has a way with just His infinite sense of humor, He certainly achieved that goal. As my kids, after we took the car ride to Kent, I was explaining to them everything that happened to this family that Dustin just described. A severe amount of trauma that my boys had never heard. They asked a lot of questions. They were very very concerned.

But within a few minutes of being at their very humble apartment in Kent my kids, as young children do, just adapt. And they were just playing and doing sports outside with these two African boys. And very little communication going on verbally but so much going on between both of them. It was really a blessing.

For me, God just really hit me with a whammy during that week. I was expecting the lesson to be for my kids, and I really feel like God had a huge lesson for me. I think in my self-centered way I didn't even think that I might get a lesson from this. But I got a huge lesson.

Personally, I have certainly had my struggles in the last three years with my own trauma...the loss of a family dream and the very sudden, unexplainable death of my sister three years ago. And in the last 3 years, my faith has just been ripped form the inside out over and over again. And I've had very emotional, angry, doubting, testing conversations with God on a regular basis in the past 3 years.

And then I met Hanzanika, the mother that Dustin told you about. And this mother's arm was completely maimed. It just hung there. She couldn't even use it. I think it was her right arm. And she had lost these two babies in this massacre. Her son had been shot, and yet this woman - she clearly had a sadness in her eyes, a deep sadness - and yet she had this steadfast faith in Jesus.

We had many meals with this family and she just prayed with this unbelievable faith despite all that trauma that she had been through. And she found a way to trust God again despite the loss of her own children. That was just so powerful for me.

I felt like I connected with her as a mother. And I felt like I connected with her as somebody who had faced tremendous loss yet had learned to trust God and still believe so rock-solidly. And really, I feel like for me that was an example of God's redemptive grace.

I feel like Hanzanika's role-modeling of her faith helped me to realize that I need to move on, and that I need to take a step further along and allow God's redemption to work through in my life as well. And thereby hopefully touching other people's lives just like Hanzanika touched mine.

Celia Penney

Hi. My name is Celia Penney. My family spent a Saturday morning in July with some other Bethany families at WR in Seattle. I'm going to share some ways that I experienced God that day.

First, we learned asome things about refugees. We heard about how many people are in refugee camps - more than 9 million - and how hard it is to live in a refugee camp. We heard about how long most of them live in refugee camps - about 9 years average. And how few of them actually get to come to another country - only about 1 percent. It was sad and interesting.

But the really interesting part came next, when we actually got to feel for ourselves just a little bit of what it's like to be a refugee. We each got to play a role in a refugee family. We had to learn our family's names and histories. Then we all dressed up in clothes from another country and walked all over the International District to find a make-believe health care clinic, a feeding center and a refugee processing center.

We were a refugee family from Afghanistan. So my mom, my sister and I all wore long dresses and head scarves, and they were really hot and uncomfortable. And my dad and my brother wore baggy pants and shirts and kind of funny hats. We saw how hard it is to get the food at the food camp, and how there just isn't very much of it.

At the health care clinic we learned that my brother had tuberculosis and we would have to choose between medicine for him and food for the whole family.

The refugee processing center was really confusing and only my brother spoke English, so he had to speak for everyone...which was really weird for my mom and dad who are used to being in charge.

I want to share two of the ways that I experienced God that day at World Relief. The first is that the day was a really good reminder for me that no matter how different we look, we really are all God's children.

When my family put on those clothes and suddenly looked really different on the outside, I knew that we were exactly the same people on the inside. I realized that different clothes, languages and customs don't really matter at all to God. He loves us all.

The second thing I learned was how important it is for all of us to help the people in the world who are refugees in any way we can. If Jesus was one of those refugees I sure would want to help Him. And when he talked about helping people who are hungry and homeless he said, "Whatever you did for the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me."

At the end of the day at World Relief a refugee from Sudan shared his story with us. I learned that a lot of people helped him along his way tot he United States and after he got here.

That showed me that I can't fix the problem for all people who are hungry or homeless, but there are things I can do for one person or one family that can really make things better for them.

Dianne Ross

Well, just from hearing those couple of stories you can get a glimpse of what a blessed summer I have had. My name's Dianne Ross, and I'm the director of Children & Family Ministries here. And throughout the summer, I've gotten to hear a lot of those stories as children have come off of experiences like the Penney young children did, we would have them share on Sunday mornings. And all summer long I was in awe of what God was doing in and through the children and their parents as they were out experiencing these real-life situations.

I could have you here for the next four hours, sharing some of those stories. But instead I think God has said to share a way that He revealed Himself to me. And this was very unexpected. The Families and Service team decided to kick off the summer with an event, to mark it. So on June 3rd, we planned this big event in the fellowship hall to kick off this big summer.

I remember there was a lot of conversation going around about what should be at that event. Well, food, because people are coming right out of church and their hungry. And we want kid-friendly stuff. But we also really wanted to incorporate the whole church family in. So we wanted to have a few activities that children and adults could do together that would be meaningful.

And I think Julia learned about World Vision having this new project called the AIDS Caregiver Kits. And because we are trying to do things that are part of the church's vision statement and AIDS - especially in Africa - is a big concern of our church, we decided to give this project a try.

So Stephanie Jones took on the project and she and I were in a lot of communication with the World Vision office. And one time we heard they were $25 a kit, then $50 a kit, then $16. So we were learning a lot as we were going, and we had big dreams of doing 500 kits until we found out the price and then we just thought, "Let's start with 125 this year."

And what these are is these bright orange - they're kind of like big, huge lunchboxes - and then inside the children and the adults would put in a lot of supplies that the caregivers (the persons in Africa caring for the person with AIDS) would receive, and this would be something they would use in their care-giving.

So pretty much Stephanie Jones was in charge of this project. She called me at the end of May and said, "Dianne, could you be there when the truck comes with all of these supplies to pick it up, because I can't be there. I have meetings."

This was Friday, June 1st, and I said "sure." So I was down in the lobby area thinking a few boxes. Then this big, huge truck pulls up and it was some pharmaceutical company truck. And he came in and he had all the heavy gear for lifting boxes. And I opened up the door and opened up the door of the library, and he started rolling these boxes in. And they just kept coming, and they just kept coming.

And the 125 bright orange kits, those alone were probably 30 boxes. And then there was the box of the cotton swabs and the box of the ointment. And flashlights, and batteries. So many things that I never had even thought before - what would a caregiver living in Africa, especially out in the rural part, or a lot of them (I think) are out in the Soweto district. So just lots and lots of supplies.

And he just kept coming. And I mean, I was thinking this was going to be a 5 minute job to go to the library and wait for this stuff, and I think I was there about two hours. So I had plenty of time to sit and kind of let this sink into my head. And something happened in that couple hours. By the time the man left, I was sitting in the library just totally surrounded by boxes and I just lost it. I just broke into tears.

And you know, I'm still not quite sure what those tears were about. I think some of it was that this was a vision that I've had for a long time of having our families really do something that matters, and really do something for someone else. And all of a sudden, I birthed that baby. And it was just pure joy. The tears were joyful tears. They were overwhelmed, but they were a sense that God is doing something and He is right here in our midst.

And every single one of these little cotton balls is going to end up in Africa, and someone there is going to be encouraged because someone here cared enough. And a child went through a long line and put all this stuff in a bright orange ugly container that's going to get shipped half-way around the world.

And I think the other reason that the tears came is that I just got hope. I just got hope. I get overwhelmed at the AIDS thing to the point that I feel like I can do nothing. And something happened that day - just kind of like Celia said - we may not be able to do everything, but we can do one thing. And that was a huge gift to me.

I think God took stuff that I knew in my head and put it in my heart that day, and that's where the tears flowed from.

The second part of that story is that on that Sunday, June 3rd, when the fellowship hall was transformed into kind of like this fair, and there were four long tables. It took that long to put all these supplies out. But the first station of what the children were to do (and it ended up being adults and everybody else), was watching a little 2 minute video about AIDS in Africa that was just excellent and really helped explain the problem and how these caregiver kits would be helpful.

So people were kind of crunched around that watching the video, and then they would go through the line putting their supplies in. And then it got to the end, and there was another big table where children were making encouragement cards. And each caregiver kit was to have one encouragement card in there. And so there was a lot of activity going around in making that happen.

During the second service I was sitting at my little booth and I was watching. And this was the second huge joy. There was a group of probably about ten, 8 to 10-year-old boys. I love 8 to 10-year-old boys. I always want to see them just loving Jesus, and loving the church, and using their gifts. And church can be hard sometimes for 8 to 10-year-old boys.

And it was so exciting because, I don't think anybody told these boys, but somehow they caught the vision that what they were doing was important. And they started stacking these boxes, they were putting in these kits, they were putting them in boxes, they were moving them around. I mean these boys were sweating, they were working so hard. One of them took it upon himself to make sure every single one had an encouragement card in it.

And then I heard a few of them talking over in the lobby area, and they were forming a club. It was going to be the AIDS Caregiver Kit Club. And they were brainstorming ideas of how they could write businesses to get the supplies, and this was going to be an ongoing thing. And I heard one of them say, "This is too important to stop today. We need to keep this going." And I lost it again. And again, this was children that God was using, giving them the vision that also encouraging us through that.

In conclusion, I'd just like to share a definition that I learned this summer. In our summer morning Sunday School classes, as we would hear from people who had been out in the "trenches," we were sharing about each of our outreach partners - World Vision, World Relief, Kenya.

And all of a sudden one day I thought, "Have I really explained what an outreach partner is?" And one of our hopes and goals is that our children wouldn't get the idea that I kind of grew up with that we're the great white hope and we're going to go help the poor people. But I didn't know quite how to explain what is an outreach partner.

And so I just kind of threw it out to the class to see if they could answer. So I said, "What do you think an outreach partner is?" We've been talking about these outreach partners. And I don't know if you remember or not, but Celia, you raised your hand. I said, "Celia!" I was so glad you raised your hand. And she said, "Outreach partners are people who pray for us and we pray for them. They help us and we help them."

That, to me, is what the summer was all about. It was getting to know our outreach partners, praying for them and knowing that they're praying for us, helping them and just seeing countless ways where they have helped us to grow in Jesus.

Pastor Dan

So Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth.

I'm always amazed as we try to be people who reach out beyond our own community that not only can we help, but we are changed as people - God changes us.

So with those stories ringing in your ears, I want to invite you just to close your eyes and take a deep breath. And just sit quietly for a moment with what you have heard, and wonder with God where it is that He is showing up - perhaps something that He is leading you to.

Let's just sit quietly.