The Senior Meal Site that now meets in our Fellowship Hall M-F needed to know how to use our industrial strength dishwasher.  So I showed the two Kitchen crew members how to operate it.  Dummy me I opened it up, showing them where to watch the water fill and where to place the detergent and then showed them the knob to turn on the water. Did a real nice spray job all over the place and got a good cleaning of my glasses. Needless to say, they got a chuckle out of my stooge like error.

Humility strikes me when I least expect it!

I wrote out three checks from the Deacon’s Fund to needy people for their medications.  I can see why we need some better health insurance for the poor who have to choose between rent, food, and meds.  Glad to help.

Over lunch I made it down to the YMCA for a treadmill sweat and steam room.  I then made a hospital call on a hip replacement and then later a Detention center call on an incarcerated friend.  I get around.

I came home to see that Kathy had just lifted a new Kenmore Microwave onto the shelf above the stove.  Our old one blew up on Sunday night. Fried real good. Sparks, smoke and a last electric groan.  Where do you dump some zapped appliance like that?

The last of the leaves are off the trees and trying to find refuge in my garage whenever the door is open.  Last year I had raked the final piles onto the street when it snowed a big one.  The plow scraped them all up and dumped them back on my curb strip.  It was late Spring when I finally shoveled the soggy mess into a trash can and took them to the dump.  Thankful that this year no snow yet and the piles I had on the street this morning where all picked up by the City.

Tuesday Night at the “Overcomers Group I heard survival stories from insanity to right living.  There is a power greater than our broken minds and lives that can restore us to sanity.  I put one guy’s bicycle in the back of my van and drove him home.  He lives near me.  Did I say I get around?

Grateful that Someone is around me!

Well, there are many things a pastor can not do that other people do. But here is one of them: Take a vacation and stay at home.

Why? Because if you are “in town” and people know it they expect you to answer the call – for funerals, hospital emergencies, marital crisis, family problems, etc.

I once had a call on a Monday, the first day of vacation. A woman asked if I could go to see her dying father right now. I said I was on vacation and leaving shortly. In a huff she responded, “God never takes a vacation!” I bit my tongue and offered her my colleague to call who was spotting for me when I was on vacation. I did the same for him when we was on vacation. Not good enough for her. I agree, God never takes a vacation. But pastors, like other people, do.

A pastor has to “get out of town.” Or his marriage, family, and sanity will break apart. Everyone has “boundaries.” They protect us, like lines on the highway and fences on a farm.

I wish I could tell you what I did yesterday.  But I have to keep some things private.

Some days in the life of a pastor I have to take with me to the grave.  Even my wife has no clue what I went through today being a pastor.

So I just keep asking God to make things right with the life of my parishioners.  They know the life of Job.  They know suffering.  They know the end of the rope is an inch from ending.  Bottomed, burned out, broken.  And so I know their secrets and they know salvation in God alone.

It is a burden I carry knowing this was the calling I submitted to.  It has been a love hate deal.  And so I experience walking with Jesus in a unique way – sometimes crumbling with the load and other times leaping with joy.  Such is the honest ministry.  It won’t make good TV preacher type ratings.  But those are as thin and phony as a Billboard Savior.

Tomorrow may bring me the other side – a taste of heaven rather than the scent of hell.  I’ve had them both.  I  soldier on.

This video will explain WHY i don’t use my wife as a sermon illuistration…

Thursday afternoon I drove out to the Kettle Moraine Correctional Institution.  Behind the gate was a man who was in my confirmation class a few years back.

I got to the parking lot and while walking toward the wire and tower and gate a guard said, “You visiting someone?”  “Yes,” I said.  “Go back to that little house and fill out the form and we’ll call you.”

I went back to this garage like building.  I found the form and a pen and filled out the papers when a voice came on a speaker. “OK – come on over.”  They must have had a camera watching me.

I walked over and emptied my pockets after turning in the form.  Then I put my valuables in a locker and walked through a metal detector.  It was just like being at the airport.  They allowed me in. It was 4PM.

I went to the administration building where there were blue plastic chairs in sections.  Handed my paper form to another official.  “You can sit in number 25.  We’ll call for the inmate.”  So I sat and watched a number of visitations going on: parents, friends, lovers, families visiting with men in dark green prison clothes. You can take in under $10.  Many did as I watched them buy chips, soda, cookies from the vending machines to give to their green suit.

Soon T. arrived.  I hadn’t seen him since he was in an orange jump suit with shackled wrists and ankles in the Sheboygan County Court House at his hearing.  That was years ago.  He was little more than a teenager back then.  It was just through letters, cards and Christmas photos that I stayed in touch with him as he moved through Dodge, Fox Lake and now here.

What greeted me with a hug and smile was a MAN.  Tanned face, slicked back hair and muscular build.  Gone were the pimples, crew cut and chubby fast food frame.  T. was a different person now.  He spoke in subdued voice of his routine: recreation, weight lifting, group meetings, classes in automotive mechanics, so-so food and tolerable roommates.  His mother always comes to visit and his brother too.  An older gentleman from the ministry at “Good News Jail and Prison Ministry” from Sheboygan also visited and kept in touch with devotional materials which he reads every morning.  None of the crowd he hung with before his run in with the law has as much as bothered to send a post card.  “I know what a true friend is now,” he said.

He may get out in the next few months.  T. is looking to start over.  “I made some bad choices which landed me in here – I have learned the hard way.”  It will be an uphill struggle to stay in the mainstream, find a job, get more education and move forward.

The prayers of his mother (a widow living on S.S) have been an unseen lifeline.  I saw Jesus in dark green clothes behind the gate.  He smiled and gave me a hug and said, “Thanks for coming, bro.” There have been only a few times when those words reached deep into my soul.  He knows he is not forgotten.

What a thin but powerful thread of grace that holds us all.  It reaches into funeral parlors, hospital rooms,  lonely apartments and behind barbed-wire gates.

Looking for God – you’ll find him there.

Maybe someone out there that reads this blog may know someone who can fill this need?  Just another good use of the blogosphere.  If so – send this post:  From Len Reedyk, (Member of Zion Covenant Church):

“Our Home Christian Ministries is looking for a person or a couple to manage a group home for special needs adults.  The home is right across the street from the park in Oostburg.  After 7 years the couple managing the home  has decided to move November 1, so we are urgently looking for someone to replace them.  

 The group home has a great three bedroom apartment attached for the manager and family to live in.  In addition to a good salary they have all living costs included – i.e.. housing, utilities, food, and use of a van.)  One of the homes has a single lady and the other has a married lady managing.  Her husband works as a police officer, and she stays home to care for her own kids and manage the home. We are looking for a Christian who will maintain the tradition of prayer at mealtime, letting the kids read the Bible after supper, and modeling regular church attendance.  Please keep us in your prayers and help us in our search.”  

If interested please call Len Reedyk at 920-459-8642.

This is an excellent ministry and service – please pray that God would lead someone to help the compassionate cause!

I arrived at their Nursing Home room about 2 PM.  Just as I sat down to visit with  this aging couple a man appeared at the door.  “I see you have company – I’ll come back and bring you to therapy later on.”  So we began our visit until another woman appeared and wanted me to reach for their water containers for refills.  So I did.  I continued to ask how they were doing and then another woman appeared and wanted to talk about some complaint about physical therapy. 

“Could you come back later we have our pastor here for a visit.”  The lady left.  And our conversation went along until another man appeared with a note: “Here is the date and time for your next doctor’s appointment.”  Okay.  Good.

“This happens all the time.  We get no rest here. Constant steam of people coming for something or other.”  I could not believe that 4 people came to the room in the first 15 minutes I was there.  Finally, the shut the door to keep the resident’s polka music from across the hall from making us talk over it.

I was able to administer the sacrament of communion with no interruptions at all.  Everyone smiled.  When I opened the door to leave after the benediction there he was the first man ready to take her down for therapy.  We all laughed.

I felt like I was on a train of conversation that kept stopping to let others know there was no room on our conversation train.  Of such is pastoral visitation.

I walked down to room 317

She was there in her chair

Clutching to her chin the white Teddy Bear

Who softly offered something other.

“It’s not the same, this life anymore

with Henry gone – I can’t ask him.”

I place in her hand the host

and then the wine.

Communion for her

singled now in her room.

Clock ticking away until she can ask again

but by then she won’t need to.

Today was more “normal” as a Sunday with sunny skies, melting snow and ice and people able to get to worship and Sunday School etc.

The women had a “Women Ministries Luncheon” kick off to share what the Covenant Church’s Women Ministry project is this year – “Human Trafficking.”  Kathy attended along with twenty other women in the parsonage.  Lynn and Linda did a good job kicking off a new fellowship/mission aimed just for women of the church.

This afternoon Andy, Bonnie and I met with a class of new members joining Zion on Easter Sunday.  Good group.  Looking forward to new faces, ideas, gifts, and talents coming into the body of Christ.  God bless them.  And I was able to catch the tail end of the Badgers beating the Buckeyes at Ohio State (sorry, Skip!).  Lu and Bill tipped me off that they were on CBS as I talked to them on the phone.

Now its just relax and have a good night at home.  God is good!

His name was Paul. He lived in a small town in the Pacific Northwest some
years ago. He was just a little boy when his family became the proud
owners of one of the first telephones in the neighborhood. It was one of
those wooden boxes attached to the wall with the shiny receiver hanging on
the side of the box. and the mouthpiece attached to the front. Young Paul
listened with fascination as his mom and dad used the phone. and he
discovered that somewhere inside the wonderful device called a telephone
lived an amazing person.

Her name was “Information Please”. and there was nothing she did not know.
 Information Please could supply anybody’s number. and the correct time!
Paul’s first personal experience with “Information Please” came one day
when he was home alone and he whacked his finger with a hammer. The pain
was terrible and he didn’t know what to do. and then he thought of the
telephone. Quickly, he pulled a footstool up to the phone, climbed up,
unhooked the receiver, held it to his ear and said: “Information Please”
into the mouthpiece. There was a click or two and then a small clear voice
spoke:  “Information.” “I hurt my finger,” Paul wailed into the phone.
“Isn’t your mother home?” “Nobody’s home but me,” Paul cried. “Are you
bleeding?”  “No,” Paul said. “I hit my finger with the hammer and it
hurts.” “Can you open your ice-box?” “Yes.” “Then go get some ice and hold
it to your finger.” Paul did and it helped a lot.

After that Paul called “Information Please for everything. She helped him
with his geography and his math. She taught him how to spell the word
“fix.”  She told him what to feed his pet chipmunk. And then when Paul’s
pet canary died, she listened to his grief tenderly and then said: “Paul,
always remember that there are other worlds to sing in.” Somehow that
helped and Paul felt better.

When Paul was nine years old, he moved with his family to Boston. and as
the years passed he missed “Information Please” very much. Some years
later as Paul was on his way out west to go to college, his plane landed
in Seattle. He dialed his hometown operator and said, “Information
Please.”

Miraculously, he heard that same small clear voice that he knew so well.
“Information.” Paul hadn’t planned this, but suddenly he blurted out:
“Could you please tell me how to spell the word “fix?” There was a long
pause. Then came the soft answer: “I guess your finger must be all healed
by now.” Paul laughed. “So it’s really still you. Do you have any idea how
much you meant to me during that time when I was a little boy?” “I
wonder,” she said, “if you know how much your calls meant to me! I never
had any children and I used to look forward to your calls so much.”

Paul told her how much he had missed her over the years and asked her if
he could call her again when he was back in the area. “Please do,” she
said, “just ask for Sally.” Three months later, Paul was back in Seattle.
This time a different voice answered. He asked for Sally. “Are you a
friend?” the operator asked. “Yes, a very old friend.” Paul answered.
“Well, I’m sorry to have to tell you this,” she said. “Sally had been
working part time the last few years because she was sick. She died 5
weeks ago.” Before he could hang up, the operator said: “Wait a minute.
Did you say your name was Paul?”

“Yes.” “Well, Sally left a message for you. She wrote it down in case you
called. Let me read it to you. It says: ‘When Paul calls, tell him that I
still say: there are other worlds to sing in.’ He will know what I mean.”

Paul thanked her and hung up and he did know what Sally meant.