laupäev, august 07, 2004
Can't Go Wrong Quoting the Founder
It's hard to write on a Saturday night when I find myself missing the opportunity to preach on Sunday morning! And I want to resist the urge to turn this blog into a daily sermon. (Sighs are heard all over the world!)
Preaching, and corps officership in general, is a lot like raising kids. It's a lot of work and can even seem like a real burden when you're having to do it all the time, but you sure do miss it after a while! I've always enjoyed preaching, enjoyed the interaction with the Bible and also with "my" people. It feels very weird not to be preaching after doing it every other week for three years straight.
For now, we "preach" differently -- through building relationships with everyone we can. But that's also what we spent three years in Chester doing. One of the highest compliments we've ever been paid was when our Advisory Board chairman referred to us as "Bridgebuilders" -- long before it was actually a Salvation Army session name!
So, we're busy unpacking all our boxes from the shipment that arrived yesterday. I laughed today when Tim unwrapped shoes that had been individually covered in many layers of paper as if they were crystal! Those 96 boxes are mostly full of packing material.
One thing we brought here is a bowl which we received at our Field Training corps while we were cadets. On it is a quote from the Founder of The Salvation Army, General William Booth: "Comrades, whatever other gifts you have, if you are to succeed, you must have hearts, and hearts that can feel."
Wow. Well, there it is, folks! When we got this bowl, I really had no idea what it meant, other than a vague reference to the many pieces of advice we were given along the lines of "love your people." The reality is, hearts that can feel are hearts that can be broken! Our hearts were broken so often when we were in Chester (the third poorest city in America).
Another thing we brought with us was a paperweight which reminds me of Lisa Cisco, one of my homeless (and mentally ill) friends from Chester. "My friends are laying in the street tonight. And I had to leave them there.... We lock the door and I walk home to my warm bed. To a fridge where there is food and a shower that is clean." (http://www.armybarmy.com/blog.html)
I remember lying in bed at night worrying about my homeless friends. Worrying about soldiers. Worrying about employees. Praying, begging, pleading with God to intervene in their lives! To heal their mental illness, or addiction, or whatever their need was, as you so often read in the Bible of Jesus healing people.
Did healing take place when we were in Chester? Will we see healing here in Tartu?
How about another quote from the Founder! This is something we printed out from http://www.armybarmy.com/images/boothpostcard.pdf (you caught me! I'm a HUGE ArmyBarmy fan!): "Your days at the most cannot be very long, so use them to the best of your ability for the glory of God and the benefit of your generation."
Well, there's nothing I can add to that! As I used to say in Chester all the time -- "we're workin' on it!"
Evelyn
Preaching, and corps officership in general, is a lot like raising kids. It's a lot of work and can even seem like a real burden when you're having to do it all the time, but you sure do miss it after a while! I've always enjoyed preaching, enjoyed the interaction with the Bible and also with "my" people. It feels very weird not to be preaching after doing it every other week for three years straight.
For now, we "preach" differently -- through building relationships with everyone we can. But that's also what we spent three years in Chester doing. One of the highest compliments we've ever been paid was when our Advisory Board chairman referred to us as "Bridgebuilders" -- long before it was actually a Salvation Army session name!
So, we're busy unpacking all our boxes from the shipment that arrived yesterday. I laughed today when Tim unwrapped shoes that had been individually covered in many layers of paper as if they were crystal! Those 96 boxes are mostly full of packing material.
One thing we brought here is a bowl which we received at our Field Training corps while we were cadets. On it is a quote from the Founder of The Salvation Army, General William Booth: "Comrades, whatever other gifts you have, if you are to succeed, you must have hearts, and hearts that can feel."
Wow. Well, there it is, folks! When we got this bowl, I really had no idea what it meant, other than a vague reference to the many pieces of advice we were given along the lines of "love your people." The reality is, hearts that can feel are hearts that can be broken! Our hearts were broken so often when we were in Chester (the third poorest city in America).
Another thing we brought with us was a paperweight which reminds me of Lisa Cisco, one of my homeless (and mentally ill) friends from Chester. "My friends are laying in the street tonight. And I had to leave them there.... We lock the door and I walk home to my warm bed. To a fridge where there is food and a shower that is clean." (http://www.armybarmy.com/blog.html)
I remember lying in bed at night worrying about my homeless friends. Worrying about soldiers. Worrying about employees. Praying, begging, pleading with God to intervene in their lives! To heal their mental illness, or addiction, or whatever their need was, as you so often read in the Bible of Jesus healing people.
Did healing take place when we were in Chester? Will we see healing here in Tartu?
How about another quote from the Founder! This is something we printed out from http://www.armybarmy.com/images/boothpostcard.pdf (you caught me! I'm a HUGE ArmyBarmy fan!): "Your days at the most cannot be very long, so use them to the best of your ability for the glory of God and the benefit of your generation."
Well, there's nothing I can add to that! As I used to say in Chester all the time -- "we're workin' on it!"
Evelyn
