When I walked into my office today there was a package waiting for me. My friend Jamie Waldron (former student, now the Student Groups Coordinator at Elevation Church) mailed me some sweet swag from her church. Her pastor wrote a book, and she sent me the promo pack. I love getting good stuff in the mail! There were pre-release copies of the book, along with some dvds to use with small groups.
But the best part of it all was the handwritten note that she put in the box. Honestly, the note by itself would have made my day. It was more refreshing than the sweet conditioned-air (which does not exist at the Sublett ranch) that met me when I entered the friendly confines of Harvest Fields.
Have you ever gotten a note like that? Maybe you have. Have you ever needed a note like that. I’m guessing that your answer is a resounding YES!
I was reading (Life Journal plug, also for your mobile devices!) about King Hezekiah and how he reacted when Jerusalem was under attack from the king of Assyria. He ran to his countrymen and encouraged them, saying, “Be strong and courageous. Don’t be afraid or discouraged…He may have a great army, but they are merely men. We have the Lord God to help us and to fight our battles for us!”
There is power in words, especially in words of encouragement. The right word spoken at the right time can mean the difference between faith and failure, between giving it your all or giving up the fight.
I needed to hear some encouraging words today, and my friend Jamie dropped them on me.
I wonder who needs to hear words of encouragement from me today…
Some people are early adopters, others come late to the party. I jumped on the Lost bandwagon somewhere in season 2, and my buddy Karl loaned me season 1 to get me caught up. There were seasons where the tv schedule allowed me to watch each week. I’d rush home from XStream to catch all the goodness in (somewhat) real time. Other years I had to resort to watching online after the episode aired. But I watched ‘em all, and loved every minute of the Lost goodness.
Kim and Levi have just started watching. I call that being extremely late to the party, but it seems to be working for them. They’ve finished the first two seasons, and are scrambling like junkies to get their next fix. Seriously–pupils are dilated, big bags forming under their eyelids from lack of sleep. I’m pretty sure they’ve missed a meal or two because of their addiction.
They’re making wild guesses about who’s who and what’s happening. At the end of every episode I’ll hear an, “Oh my goodness! No–you can’t do that to Sayid!” or something along that line. Levi was talking to Pastor Dan about it, stating that his personal favorite Lostie is Mr. Eko. Dan couldn’t remember who Mr. Eko is. I hope that doesn’t give something away. They just learned that Henry Gale is really Benjamin Linus, the leader of the Others.
They keep pestering me for details about what’s going on as they we watch. I’ll admit, I’m getting sucked back into the lure of the island, captivated by their enthusiasm and zeal. So far, I’ve been able to keep my mouth shut. I don’t want to spoil anything for them. Surprisingly, there aren’t too many people chatting on FB about season 3 and what happened to Walt and Michael anymore…
I’m enjoying their addiction, I’ll have to admit it. I’m having fun listening to them talk about what’s going on, even though I already know how the show ends.
I wonder if that’s how God feels about us. He already knows how our story lines intersect and wander across this island. He knows how the arcs play together, and how each character will develop. Of course, it’s a little different with us being the actors in the story, trying to figure out what our next move is, where Walt and Michael went, and what those crazy numbers actually mean…
At any rate, there are lots of good things to talk about as we watch Lost again/for the first time, together. Does anyone happen to have seasons 3 and 4? We’ve got a long road trip coming, and we’ll need to feed the addiction…
Kim and I were in China six months ago, signing the papers and promising to take care of our newest daughter for the rest of our lives. We got our first family photo taken. Annabelle knew only a few words in English. She was afraid of me (only a little bit, she assures me), but took to Kim right off the bat. We were living in a fabulous hotel room, sharing firsts of everything–first McDonalds, first pizza, first family prayer, first mother-daughter hair washes and nail salon trips, first shopping experiences, first church services…
It seems both long ago and just yesterday all at the same time.
I can hardly believe that this little girl has only been with us for 6 months. She’s learned so much in such a short time. Her English is growing by leaps and bounds, and she lives like she’s always been part of our family. Our kids adore her, and she fits right in. She’s learned all the family jokes and secrets. She doesn’t get special “I’m the new kid” favors anymore, and I don’t think she wants them. She’s adopted us as much as we’ve adopted her.
With each passing month we learn more of her backstory. It’s fascinating to hear her talk about life before she became a Sublett. Today she told us a little more about her years living outside Maoming, in a smaller village with a family. Tonight at bedtime she told me what she understood about the Creation story before she learned about God being the creator. Just yesterday I heard her asking Kim if Jesus spoke Chinese and Spanish, or just English!
As I was sneaking into their room to take out the trash tonight, I had one of those moments that Dan Nold likes to call a Love Burst–you know, when you feel your heart grow a little bit with the onrush of love…Annabelle’s been sleeping in Sadie’s bed lately. She saw the episode of Lost with the polar bear, and has been a little “scary” of bears storming into the house! I have reassured her that we’re pretty safe from bear attacks, but Sadie’s defense is a little better than mine…
I entered an online drawing to win some David Crowder*Band music, thinking that the odds of me winning were pretty slim. Have you ever entered one of these drawings? Most of the time I enter, because you can’t win if you don’t play…
You can imagine my surprise and joy when I got an email congratulating me for being a winner.
I felt affirmed and encouraged. I’ve always hoped to be a winner. I have pictured that moment in my head countless times. Me–a winner. I dared to believe, dared to dream. And now here it was, in beautiful verdana 10 point type…Congratulations! You are a winner.
But alas, it was not to be. Some hours later I got a follow up email apologizing for the mix up. It turns out that I am, in fact, not a winner. Though the author of said email didn’t come right out and pronounce it, the only conclusion that I can draw is that (given that I am not a winner) I am a loser.
Oh well, a fellow can still dream, can’t he?
In all seriousness, I wrestled with my response to this for a few minutes. I was disappointed (still am) and a little ticked off. I got my hopes up, and felt a rush of Summer Happiness, but it was short-lived. I don’t know if I tracked through all 7 stages of grief or not. But in the end, I decided to land somewhere in the area of grace. I’ll send a nice follow-up note to the person who emailed me the good/bad news, and I’ll be gracious.
When misfortune lands in our laps, we have choices to make in terms of how we deal with it. We all wrestle with emotions, and being hurt, well, hurts. But in this case, I figure that I didn’t have the Crowder music before the contest, and I haven’t really lost anything. I know that I’ve let people down in the past (far past, way past past, nothing recent, I swear.) Those people who responded with grace breathed life back into my deflated self; the people who responded looking for justice and a pound of flesh…let’s just say they didn’t help the situation.
You may find yourself someday with a perfectly good reason to lay the lumber to someone’s rear-end. You may be totally justified in seeking what’s yours. But I’m proposing that we offer grace instead of justice and wrath. Grace is a life-giver, and I want to receive grace in my hour of need.
This week we dropped 2 of our young’ns off for church camp. We do church camp a little different around these parts: it’s a stay-local, serve-local kind of thing. We bring middle and high school students together for a week of worship, teaching, and games (yeah, that sounds like camp.) But since we’re local, each day students find themselves in some local, um, locale…where they spend the afternoon serving in the community where they live.
We stole borrowed this idea from our good friend Sean Michael Murphy and the kind folks at the Vineyard Church in Cincinnati. This is our 3rd year of Summer of Service, and it seems to be gaining some steam.
This is Lilly’s first year of SOS. Levi is one of the “older guys” now, and they both were excited about serving in the community with their friends. As we pulled into the parking lot, some students ran over to greet them/us. It was fun to watch the groups of students playing games, sitting in the grass talking…
I felt a little pang of “I miss this.”
That’s where the apron strings get cut. It really has nothing to do with letting my kids go to camp. It has everything to do with letting go of this youth ministry that I’ve poured myself into for the past 12 years. SOS (and other things like it) used to be my baby. I dreamed about youth ministry, lived and breathed it, poured myself into it for 20 years. I majored in youth ministry, and for most of my life could only imagine a world with me leading the charge.
So this week has been a little tough emotionally. I still believe that the changes we’ve made are good. I love my role as the pastor of Midtown (one of Calvary’s worship gatherings.) The change has been great for my family. The folks who are leading the student ministries of Calvary are doing a great job.
But I’m learning that the cutting of the apron strings takes more than a new job title and a celebration.
If you think about it, please pray for the students and leaders who are serving all around Happy Valley this week, and the leader who misses the action…
And what a birthday it was! This was one of those rare occasions that the event lived up to the hype. We celebrated from Thursday til Sunday, with anyone and everyone who’d join us. From Thursday night’s dinner with Kimmy, Delma, Joyce, and Evangeline, to my brother and his family coming up to visit, to DelGrosso’s with the cousins and Kim’s mom, to Sunday at church…we were a non-stop party.
We ate 2 ice cream cakes, rode countless spinny-rides (I hate spinny rides, btw), had some epic water battles, lost and found a zillion silly bands, stayed up late and had some awesome sleepovers…
Annabelle loved every minute of it. Each gift was special to her. She was thankful to receive the things she got, and if I heard her say, “Oooh, I love it!” once, I heard her say it a hundred times. We shared lots of special moments over the course of a few days, and created some lasting memories. But do you know what was the kicker for me?
Hearing 400+ people sing Happy Birthday to Annabelle Sunday morning at church. Now, Happy Birthday isn’t really a worship song, but I just know that Jesus and the angels were joining us as we sang! That moment will be forever etched in my heart. It hit me like a ton of bricks, and I almost lost it. To think that just a year ago we were praying about whether we should take a chance on an older child waiting to be adopted from China…and now she’s sleeping upstairs in our house.
This little girl, with no family, no connections, no real sense of love or home or family…now she’s got it all in abundance! She’s come quite a long way, and has done it with flair!
Thank you, dear friends, for helping us along our journey. Thanks for praying and giving, for investing in our family, for helping us bring Annabelle into our home, for asking how she’s doing, and for loving us. Our lives have been forever changed, her destiny forever altered, our family forever blessed…
Annabelle is turning 10. It actually took her a while to grasp the concept of celebrating on her birthday. I don’t know if they didn’t do birthdays at her orphanage, or if it has something to do with Chinese culture in general. But apparently she’s never had a birthday party. Kim’s going to rectify that, in a big way.
With her adjustment into our family and culture going as smoothly as it has, I can tend to forget that she’s had a hard-knock life for most of her 10 years. She’s experienced more than most 10 year olds have, maybe more than most of us, period. She was abandoned by her birth mother, never knew her biological parents, lived with a foster family for a time, then sent back to the home/orphanage for school. She had to care for the babies, rising before 6 to change diapers and clean up the messes from the night. She ate little, and experienced even less. Her knowledge of life has been pretty limited. But we’re trying to make up for lost time! She asks about a thousand questions each day, wanting to know the whats and whys about everything. She’s embraced Christianity, and loves to read and talk about Jesus and heaven. She’s a great sister, a good student, and is learning to overcome her fear/dislike/hatred of “the bug!” She’s still not too keen on spaghetti, pizza, milk, cheese, and bread, but she’s eating well. She says she loves living in America, and loves being part of our family.
Tomorrow night we’ll be partying with Joyce and Evangeline, the two Chinese young ladies who have become part of our extended family. They’ll both be moving on soon, and we want to thank them for all they’ve done for our family. Honestly, I don’t know where we’d be without their help. They jumped right into the mix here, helping Annabelle adjust, keeping her connected with her native language, providing us with translation help and Chinese food, and loving us. I don’t want them to leave, but their time in happy Valley has come to an end.
My brother and his family are heading this way tomorrow, arriving sometime around 11pm. Amanda and the kids met Annabelle when we landed in Harrisburg! Yep, they drove all the way from Durham, hung out for a little while at McDonald’s in the airport, then turned around and headed home. Crazy, right? Scott hasn’t met Annabelle yet, so this is going to be big for him. They have a heart for adoption, too, and we love seeing them. I even got Alex to convince them to stick around for church on Sunday. They’re part of a great church in Durham, one that’s similar to Calvary.
Sunday is Annabelle’s actual birthday. She was abandoned on day 1 of her life. Can you imagine what that’s like? I sure can’t. But she’s got a family now, and is loved like crazy. I don’t know if she fears abandonment anymore. She doesn’t act like it, although she did tell me that she got scared tonight when everybody was out of the house except her. She got a little creeped out and started calling for Sadie. Fortunately, the Sadie-bug was close by, and came to the rescue. I don’t know what the party plans are for the weekend, but Annabelle has already scouted out the Spikes game, and knows that there are fireworks following Sunday’s game. I’m going to see if I can pull off a little Chaplain-magic, and maybe we’ll pretend that the fireworks are for her!
into the keyboard as I type this, so I’m not going to post much.
This past weekend Calvary brought all our different gatherings together for a united worship meeting. Well, it was actually 2 meetings (9 and 11) at the high school. But it was a great weekend of togetherness. Vic King brought a great message about FREEDOM in JESUS, and I’ve been letting it roll around in my head for the past couple of days.
The highlight for me, however, happened during communion. Last month, after our communion Sunday, Annabelle walked into the kitchen to inform us that she wanted Jesus. We talked through what that meant, just to make sure that she understood what she was talking about. She did, we prayed, then we took communion together as a family.
This past weekend, I was leading worship while Kim, Levi, and Lilly served in the kids’ ministry. That left Sadie and Annabelle alone for the bulk of the church service. As we entered the time for communion, I was singing and playing my guitar. I glanced down from the stage to see Sadie and Annabelle approach the communion station, tear a piece of the bread, dip it into the cup, and share communion together. They didn’t know that I saw, but it CRUSHED me!
I have had countless “Thank You Jesus!” moments over the past 5 months, but that one takes the cake…
What a party! I think we had our biggest turnout ever. Seriously–there were people all over the place. The food was great–kudos to John and Curtis for mastering the grills, and to those of you who brought all the yummies. The fireworks were spectacular, like always. The yard looked good–thanks to Paul for the help with the limb removal, and my kids for working their fingers off cleaning up! But the best part (for me) was the conversations that I got to have, and those I got to see taking place. We got to hang out with some old friends, and spend time with some new ones. I love it when we can get together and talk. A great church knows how to party together!
Since the day she arrived in our home, Annabelle has been watching her brother and sisters on the stage. Seriously, I have no idea how many shows she’s been to over the past 5 months. She’s been a great supporter and fan of her siblings. Her favorite parts of Levi’s shows have been either the kissing scenes, or when he gets to whack somebody in the head. I’m not exactly sure what that says about her…or us…
At any rate, she got her moment to shine tonight. Our church puts on a sports camp (instead of a traditional classroom-based vacation Bible school) each summer. It’s been a huge hit with the families around town, and the children get to learn some skills and hear the good news about God’s love for them. Win-Win.
Levi coached footballers again this year, and loves watching his cousins Mitchell and Malachi tear it up. Lilly and Mackenzie ruled the softball diamond, and Sadie honed her hoop skills. But Annabelle decided that she wanted to take the dance class. She LOVED it! She couldn’t wait to show us what she learned this week. When we walked into the cafeteria, she popped out from behind the door asking, “Are you ready to see me dance?!” I love the way she gets excited to share something that she’s learned with us.
Here’s a clip of the class getting funky
We are thrilled with the ways she is growing. She’s learning about Jesus, about what it means to be family, and loving her life with us. She’s adjusting very well to life in the Sublett house!
After Camp dismissed, Kim took all the kids out for ice cream at DQ. Not a bad way to wrap up the camp…
