March 4 – “Rat Patrol”

I started out my day yesterday with a Rat Patrol meeting at the church.  No, that’s not our new name for the Praise Team.  Nor is it the official Church designation for elders.  This was literally a Rat Patrol meeting.  As in … exterminator.  One of our retreat center regular clients, a group that meets there every Friday for a Homeschool music coop, reported to us that they had found signs of rodents in the storeroom.  They suggested that the creatures were some kind of sewer or river rats, something really huge, like maybe a nutria.  And our retreat center coordinator was right on that problem.  She emailed me to let me know.  I don’t think she wanted to be anywhere near that room.  I let them know that we would call an exterminator – the Rat Patrol. 

So yesterday I made my way through the array of automobiles in the parking lot to find Steve the Rat Patrol guy.  He was parked in a back corner, so it took me a while.  In fact, it took me a while to find a place to park.  Just a little taste of what problems rapid growth would bring to Seaside.  I explained the situation, and he grabbed a box with some bait in it.  We headed up the stairs to do the Rat Patrol installation.  On the way I somberly offered, “Steve, if we run into a wombat in there, I trust that you know what you are doing.”  Steve looked at me for a long few seconds before exploding, “A wombat?  Where did that come from?”  Well, that’s the question now, isn’t it, Steve?  Where, indeed?

So now the bait box has been set in an inconspicuous corner of the storeroom.  The clients have been informed that the problem is being dealt with.  Our retreat center coordinator can now be assured that she is unlikely to meet an uninvited guest.  Well, at least until we go in and check that bait …

2 Thessalonians 2:16-17 says, “May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and by his grace gave us eternal encouragement and good hope, encourage your hearts and strengthen you in every good deed and word.”

Father, thank you for all of your little critters, even the ones that kind of make us cringe.  Amen.