February 28 – “Live and breathe”

We just got home from a youth camp counselors' meeting at Mike & Cindy's house.  Mike gave us an update on the numbers.  We have thirty spots reserved and right now all of them are taken and there are two kids on the waiting list.  There are also a few kids from Kel's church who might want to go with us.  As we get closer we may have to rent another van.  He also told us that the youth group from Louise, Texas, that came and cleaned up our property wants to hook up with us when we go to camp.  That should be a lot of fun.  None of them have ever been.  Most of them have grown up on a farm.  Let's take them to the mountains.  We need $6000 for transportation and counselor's camp fees so the kids can do fund raisers to cover their own camp costs.  That's a great place to start praying.   Before the meeting we worked all day at cleaning the church (Chris) and cleaning out two storerooms (me).  We need to empty out one of them so we can turn it into showers.  That will make Seaside a prime place for groups to stay when they come to Galveston to do ministry.  That shower conversion is supposed to happen next weekend.  A group from Brownwood is coming down with a plumber and a building team to create the new Seaside Shower Room.  That same group is also bringing a team to put a roof on our house for us.    Ned and Nancy came by while we were working.  They were delivering diapers and clothes to Family Crisis Center.  Ned had already filled in ten or twelve holes under the new building.  Those two are great models for all of us.  Sure we have people coming in to help, but we also have a responsibility to work as well.  And that responsibility does not end with our own property.  We need to look outside ourselves and discover where God is at work around us.  There are a lot of people who still need storm help.  But guess what?  There are a lot of people who need help that is totally unrelated to the storm.  Imagine that.  Life goes on.  People live and breathe and work and play and they all need Jesus.    Ecclesiastes 1:5-6 says, "The sun rises and the sun sets, and hurries back to where it rises.  The wind blows to the south and turns to the north; round and round it goes, ever returning on its course."      Romans 3:23-25 says, "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus."   Father, help me see – really see – those people who are just living.  Amen.