October 2 – “Neighbors Night Out Day”

I had an interesting experience at water therapy yesterday.  A new gentleman joined the class for the first time, and we struck up a conversation while waiting for our instructor to begin.  He introduced himself, and the named rang a vague bell somewhere in the back of my brain, but I couldn’t place it.  Apparently me name did the same for him.  He asked if I went to Ball High and what year I was there.  As I answered, the light bulb began to slowly turn on, like someone had hit the dimmer switch.  Not an unusual occurrence for me in terms of memory.  I did know this guy, but surely he was not …  And then came the crowning blow.  He confessed that he had been a teacher at Ball High during that time.  And he tossed out a casual, “Maybe you were one of my students.”  There it was.  He was who I thought he was.  Amazing.  Here I was, forty-two years after high school graduation, doing water aerobics with my biology teacher, Mr. C.  We were even partners for one of the exercises.  Mr. C introduced himself as Jack, though, so I guess I get to be a big boy now.

We also got word yesterday that Josh and Christi made it into their new house in Waco.  They had a boatload of help to unload their storage pods when they were delivered.  I knew that church had it in them to take care of that.  They even helped get boxes unpacked and clothes hung up while Christi took the boys to a sibling class at the hospital in preparation for the arrival of baby brother Luke here before too much longer.  As we had breakfast Chris told Cailyn that Zak and Caleb got to sleep in their brand new house last night.  She grinned and replied, “I know that.  I talk-ted that in my brain.”  We obviously had a puzzled look on our faces as we tried to process what that could possible mean.  Ever the caring granddaughter, she sensed our consternation.  Taking another bite of waffle, she added between bites, “God told me that.”  Ah.  Of course.

Last night was National Night Out, the Texas version.  The rest of the nation does it in August, but Texas holds out for the cooler October weather.  Now, it had been raining hard all day, so I wasn’t surprised to get a call from Alice, the neighborhood organizer.  Her first comment, before even saying hello, was, “You didn’t pray right.”  Ouch.  I replied, ”Hey, it’s not 6:00 yet.”  She was calling to ask what I thought we should do because of the rain.  She even offered her house and large garage to move the event.  Alice is one sweet lady.  I encouraged her to wait and see, and sure enough, the sky had cleared off by 4:30, and the event went off as scheduled.  In fact I would say better than expected.  We had quite a few Gulf Village residents in attendance ready for some grilled hot dogs and neighbor mingling.  Alice got everyone’s attention, introduced me as “the fire department chaplain who lives in Gulf Village,” and asked me to, in her words, “bless Gulf Village.”  I prayed a simple prayer, just thanking God for being bigger than government shutdowns, for neighbors who care about each other, and for some great food.  Among our guests for the evening we welcomed: the Galveston police chief, the assistant fire chief, the crew of fire station 4 (that’s the one responsible for our neighborhood.  They drove up in a fire engine and let kids inspect it), the police officer who patrols our area at night, the assistant city manager, and even the mayor himself, who arrived with a two-motorcycle police escort.  I met several of the newer residents and let them in on what to expect around Halloween in the neighborhood.  One young man I met and talked to briefly returned after most everyone was leaving and asked if he could have a few moments of my time.  He said he appreciated the prayer I said because it was surprisingly short and unexpectedly real, so he thought I would be a safe person to talk to.  And so he talked for a long time, really opening up about his life and struggles.  Everyone else was gone and the mosquitoes were eating us alive when we finally left to head home.  He may call again in the future.  He will definitely be in my prayers.  It’s always exciting when God begins drawing someone closer to himself. 

Psalms 114:7-8 says, “Tremble, O earth, at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the God of Jacob, who turned the rock into a pool, the hard rock into springs of water.”

Father, sometimes the best thing to do is tremble at your work.  Keep drawing that young man to yourself.  Amen.