July 2 – “A re-connection”

I got one of those messages from out of the blue while we were in Waco.  This one came over FaceBook Messenger, so it was evident someone had spent some time searching.  I did a doubletake when I saw that initial partial of the message that comes up before you actually go to Messenger to see the whole thing.  Sure enough, the message was from Anthony.

Now Anthony’s effort at re-connection here was a real blast from the past.  See, many years ago, when I was a basketball coach for Nathan’s high school team, Anthony joined us.  He was six feet eight inches tall, always a welcome addition on the basketball court.  Problem was, he had never played before, so he had to learn the game from scratch.  He did a good job terrorizing teams away from indiscriminate driving to the basket, and by the end of the season he was making real strides.  But then he had to move back to his home in … Australia.  I heard from one other time after he returned.  He was involved in playing for and then coaching with the Australian national junior team.  He wanted to reconnect with Nathan as well, so I steered him in the right direction.  Good kid. 

I was stopped after church yesterday by one of the visitors.  The young man identified himself as a youth pastor from Syria doing an internship in the United States for his Master of Divinity degree from Harvard.  He was currently doing a sub-internship with Mercury One Charities.  His comment?  He had never been to a worship service like ours in the entire year and a half he has been in the States.  His actual words were, “I have never seen anything like this.”  Apparently the comment was a positive one (You never know), because he wants to have coffee one day this week and talk some more.  He handed me his phone to enter in my number.  The number part went fine, but when he switched it over to enter my name, the characters were all in Arabic.  Not one of the languages I am even remotely familiar with.  He apologized profusely and switched it over to English.  Can’t wait to get his text.

After church yesterday we went over to Micah’s house for his birthday party.  It consisted of five or six kids taking turns playing video games.  The adults sat around the table and chatted.  His “cake” was a collection of ice cream sandwiches decorated to look like GameBoy controllers.  Creative stuff, Mom. 

Psalms 73:26 says, “My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.”

Father, thank you for Micah.  It has been a real treat having him around.  Amen.