Avoiding Evil

I have to admit, I was a bit blind sighted by the smoke screen that went up when LifeWay released this years Vacation Bible School theme Rickshaw Rally. At first I approached the theme with enthusiasm, taken by the idea of a theme based on the Far East. As material began to arrive at the church I, as usual, snuck a peek at what was to come this summer. It looked like a good idea.

However, with the mere mention of it on my blog my thoughts were met with adamant opposition, bashing Rickshaw Rally for its racial insensitivity and sending out a call to all Christians to boycott such a theme. This took me by surprise as I began to investigate these awkward claims. It turns out that there were some people offended by this material. While I may not fully understand the nature of this offence, I certainly do not wish to offend anyone. The mention of this opposition to Rickshaw caused me to re-evaluate our Vacation Bible School this year. I talked with several of the leaders in the church and we discussed the material. I looked at it with a little more negativity and angst as I searched for things that were offensive to the Asian community. At the thought that VBS could be offensive to someone my enthusiasm and excitement was lost and replaced with reluctance and negativity.

Despite our negative attitudes about it and the fear that this material was not a good thing, we proceeded with planning for VBS with the Rickshaw Rally material. Today is the fourth day of Vacation Bible School at my church and let me just say, I am glad we stuck with Rickshaw Rally. If you ask me this has been one of the best years of Vacation Bible School that I have been a part of. Out of the six years that I have participated in VBS at my church, I have had more fun at this one, with this theme, than any of the others. It is sad that a group of people made such a big deal out of this and probably turned away a large number of people, for nothing. Honestly, I am disappointed in myself for being led astray by these naysayers who led me into a pessimistic mindset that caused me and I am sure a large number of other people to miss the point. The point of VBS is not about the material, it isn’t to teach Asian culture correctly or to attempt to make everyone happy, VBS is about Jesus. The focus, goal, and destination of Vacation Bible School should always be teaching children about the love of Jesus Christ and let me say Rickshaw Rally does that very well. It is unfortunate that reality was set aside and hidden away by the mere thought that the material might be offensive. It reminds me of how easily and quickly we attempt to water down and sugar coat the gospel in order to not be offensive to someone. We some times belittle the gospel away into nothing in the brazen attempt to not offend. We are so quick to throw the baby out with the bath water.

In my six years of VBS I think this is one of the largest ones we have had. Our youth group set a goal of 1000 fliers to pass out in our community. We met together three times and hit the streets putting fliers in people’s doors. It works well, people from all over the community brought their children to VBS this year. The more children we have, the more opportunities we have to not only share Christ with them but also their parents. Please be in prayer for our church the next couple of days as we finish out Bible school and teach children the A, B, C’s of becoming a Christian.

Pressed

Of all the outdoor activities in the world trout fishing continues to be one of my favorite things to do. Starting back in high school when me and a couple of my closest friends began our trout fishing extravaganza trips to Mauntak State Park where we slept for days on the ground in rain, snow, and every other thing you could possible think of. I’ve slept all night in the hot truck during thunderstorms, and in a sleeping bag on the ground in four inches of snow. I’ve fished in the pouring down rain for well over 5 hours, in the freezing cold during a snow storm, and on the hottest days of the year. Whether it was 110 degrees or 2 degrees we were hard core fishing freaks, and still are for that matter.

Last Friday me and a few friends went trout fishing again. Le Renard and I took a couple friends with us who had never been trout fishing before. We went down to Meremac Springs at about 5:45 a.m. and prepared to fish the day away. Unfortunately nature was not kind to us. At 6:00 a.m. it began to sprinkle, then get a little bit heavier, and then the torrential downpour of death came and completely soaked us for six hours. It never cleared up or stopped raining for the entire six hour period of time. I’ve taken showers drier than this, it was terrible!

Fishing was not that great either while it was raining. However, when it cleared up and the sun came out the fish got their appetite back. Here is a picture of Me and JD as we attempt to cross the river. Good thing we didn’t get a picture of me slipping off of the slippery submerged tree just moments before this shot.

I do have a bit of a dark side when it comes to trout fishing. I like to catch fish, of course, but I like to catch fish in front of people who are not catching fish… especially if they have been fishing in that hole for a long time and I just step up next to them and catch a fish. This is a guilty pleasure of mine that I feel a slight bit of guilt over, sometimes.

Here is JD and I with our stringers full of tasty trout. If you ask me trout is one of the best tasting fish, although I like a wide variety. If you notice I have a couple fish sticks, a fish sandwich, and then one pretty good size fish. I caught some little ones while it was raining…

There is always some kind of weird thing that happens when we go fishing too. This trip was the blowout! I slid down this little embankment to get to a good fishing hole and when I tried to climb back up it I placed all my weight (which is quite a bit) on one foot and when I did my old sandal exploded. When the sandal blew open, my foot came flying out and I went sliding down the treacherous gravel pit of destruction. By the time I got up my finger was bleeding, my elbow was bleeding, my foot was bleeding, and my sandal was destroyed. Worst part of all is that it was a long walk back to the truck with a messed up sandal.

JD and I always help each other out when we are fishing too. This trip he caught a healthy fish and both of us had our dip nets out trying to get this fish in. It was probably a funny site to see us scrambling on our hands and knees and yelling like crazy trying to get this fish in. It was a nice 2 pound trout. Here is a picture:

Fishing… It’s great.

Pressed

Spending several years at Missouri Baptist University I got to know some of the professors pretty well. When I began taking extension classes through Midwestern Baptists Theological Seminary I got to know those professors even more because they were used by Midwestern to teach the seminary classes at the St. Louis extension center. As I begin my third year of seminary this fall I will have had classes with these professors for five years in a row, and needless to say I know them pretty well by now.

This summer I decided to take a couple classes to get more hours out of the way. One of those classes was offered at Missouri Baptist University and Midwestern said they would let me transfer the credit from MoBap to the seminary, so I signed up. Honestly I was excited about taking this class “Spiritual Formation” with one of my well known professors Dr. McClain. We met together as a class and started to come up with the times to meet for class. Unfortunately, the class is only supposed to meet three times out of the entire summer and I had to miss two of those times. One week I was in Wyoming and the other week I had to do Vacation Bible School at my church. At this news, when I came back from all the trips I had to take in June I decided to just drop the course cause I didn’t have enough time to catch up. So I began the process of making contact at Mobap to drop my class, and over the last few days me and the graduate secretary played phone tag and I never could get a hold of her. On the second day of class that I had to miss, I got online and suddenly received an Instant Message from my professor saying, “You’re late for class!” So I proceeded to explain the situation and how I was planning on dropping cause I couldn’t make it and we had a pretty long conversation. Finally he talked me into finishing the class and turning all the work in by the 17th of August without having to attend the classes, which is actually a pretty sweet deal, and then he proceeded to say, “Oh, by the way, the class is enjoying your discussion.” Apparently, being Mr. funny man, he was having this conversation with me in front of the whole class who was watching. RAAAAAAAA! How embarrassing. Oh well, good news: I get to finish the class and get more credits towards my goal… bad news: I have a ton of work to do.

Pressed

Friday night, June 9th, I took 32 people from my youth group to see the Cardinals vs. the Cubs. Each year Meramec Caverns has an emphasis night at Busch Stadium, which means they get large amounts of free tickets. The best part about this is the vice president of Meramec Caverns is also one of my 9th and 10th grade Sunday school teachers, which means our youth group gets a bunch of free tickets as well. This year just happened to fall during a time that the Cardinals were playing the Cubs. If you don’t know much about baseball then let me point out that there is a fairly significant rivalry between the Cards and the Cubs, which meant a completely packed house. I have been to Busch Stadium more times than I can count, but this is the first time I have seen it that full. Despite being squeezed in there with 49,000 other people it was an excellent game.

Unfortunatly I cannot say that tonights game was excellent. After church, Chris, Michael, JD, and I went to McDonalds to eat dinner and watch the Cardinals baseball game. When we sat down in front of the television we realized that there were a couple of dirty Cubs fans sitting right behind us. I was hoping to see the Cardinals whoop up on the Cubs again, just to hack off the fans of course, however the Cardinals eight game winning streak ended tonight, 8-4. There is good news; what matters is not the loss tonight, but the eight game winnings streak that preceded this game. St. Louis goes into the All-Star break with the National League’s best record at 54-33.

This will be one of the last times I get to visit Busch Stadium because in an estimated 637 days the new stadium will be opening. The new stadium looks good in the pictures, but I think Busch Stadium is fine, there really was not a need to spend all of this money on a new stadium. If you want to check it out and see a live webcam of construction then click here.

The New Cardinals Ballpark is scheduled to open in the spring of 2006. They are placing home plate in the southwest corner of the site and lowering seating and scoreboard heights in center field, so that the majority of spectators will have dramatic views of the Gateway Arch and the downtown St. Louis skyline.

They are attempting to make a connection between the ballpark itself and the emerging urban neighborhood on the north side of Clark Street called Ballpark Village. From Clark street and the village you will be able to see directly into the field as the Cardinals play ball.

The Trip Down: On Friday, June 4, everyone met at the church early in the morning to load up the vans and begin the long trip to Casper, WY. I, however, was not among them because I had a class in Kansas City on June 4. Instead I got up at 3:30 a.m. and Le Renard drove me to Kansas City so that I could take my class and then get on an airplane to fly to Casper. This all worked out perfectly, with no problems other than getting strip searched at the airport. I sent my bags with the convoy of vans and so I was a single male traveling to Casper, WY with no luggage; automatic security search for me! When I arrived in Casper it was dark, I hadn’t eaten dinner, and I was ready for bed. We drove up the mountain in the dark and you couldn’t see much at all other than a bunch of lights as you looked across the plain. It was an amazing view, even at night.

The Next Day: I arrived in Casper almost a full day ahead of the caravan of missionaries that left the day before, around 20 hours earlier to be exact. I had all day to hang out at the camp and work with a few guys who also came a day earlier to get the camp ready for our team to come in. When I woke up and walked outside, the view of the camp was amazing.

There were dandelions that completely covered the grass and the fields which were surrounded by huge trees. The deer were standing out in the field eating, and they were not easily spooked by humans, so you could get really close to them. I spent a lot of time watching the wildlife in the area. The deer would just walk in next to you while you were working, and some would even eat out of your hand. It was a beautiful place.

Most of the day I was working on the camp, getting it ready for the other crew of people to come in. I spend a large amount of time working on the cabin I was going to stay in for the week. Since the camp only stays open 3 or 4 months out of the year before it is completely covered in snow again, the buildings were simply covered in large amounts of dust and dirt. The reason we were there was to do several different things: We had 4 teams coming in, one to work on the camp and get it read to open for the summer, two of them were to do VBS in dual locations around Casper, and the fourth team was to do concrete and construction work at another church and at the Wyoming Baptist Association building.

The Mission Work: Each team had something different to do. During the week the Camp team stayed at the camp and worked to get it ready for summer. They cleaned cabins, painted buildings, cut wood, fixed trucks, cleaned bathrooms, fixed toilets, and basically did all of the maintenance that needed to be completed in order to get the camp up and running. The construction team poured concrete the first four days at a church called Imitate the Image. This church was small and their members were parking out on the street, which is unfortunately against city policy. The city told them that they had to have enough concrete poured to park the cars or they would have to close the doors of the church. They raised some money and our church raised some money and we brought a team down to pour loads of concrete. The other two teams did VBS. One in a bigger church who was doing their summer VBS and another in Imitate the Image, which doesn’t normally do Vacation Bible Schools at all.

The week went very well. The camp was ready to open, the concrete was poured, and 9 children accepted Christ through VBS. Not only that, plenty of seeds were planted and our own church group grew out of that experience together.

The Things I Learned:

1. There is less air at 8000 feet. I would walk a very short distance from the cabin to the kitchen and be so out of breath that I had to sit down. When I first arrived it was worse, I couldn’t hardly take 10 steps without getting winded.

2. Wyoming is windy, and I’m not talking a gentle breeze. I have never in my life been to a place that is was so windy. There were two or three days that the wind was blowing insanely hard, dirt and sand would get in my eyes and mouth. It was awful. I was talking to the Pastor at Imitate the Image and I said, “It’s windy today.” He replied, “Windy? This is nothing compared to the way it normally is.” This put the fear into me and the next day we experienced it. Seventy mile an hour winds blew on us all day long. It was pushing on the vans, and I kid you not we saw a 50 gallon steel drum blowing across a field. I did get to see a tumbleweed, the highlight of a windy day.

3. I learned how to play hand and foot (card game), chicken foot (dominoes) and train (dominoes). Christopher and I would go up to another cabin and play card games and domino’s till late in the evening each night. We would yell and scream and laugh and keep everyone up in the cabins around us. It was great.

4. When you are in a dark cabin with no door locks on top of a dark mountain with who knows what crawling around outside, don’t talk about scary things that get you all worked up and uptight. Christopher and I hit the lights to go to sleep in the cabin and began discussing bears, scary movies, and serial killers picking off people one at a time. Very surreal and debase conversation as I look back on it, but enough to freak us out. So, as I was laying there in my tiny bunk bed with my eyes wide open thinking of all the terrible things that could happen in the dark of the night, Christopher decided to peek out the window and as he did a beam of light came blasting through that window and both of us jumped up, screaming like little girls. Come to find out it was truck lights from a couple people from the camp who had went somewhere and they were just returning very late. I had to change my underpants several times that night.

5. Never build a big fire in the cabins on a windy night. It was supposed to get down to 30 degrees one evening, so I decided to build a fire. Each cabin had a 50 gallon drum with legs and a door for a fireplace. A couple nights before we had a fire, no problem. This night, however, I decided to double the amount of wood I put in there to keep the fire going throughout the night. As the fire was going and heating up, I was standing by myself in the cabin when suddenly **WHHOOOOOSSSHHHHH** the fireplace made a very loud noise and blew large amounts of smoke out of every hole it could find. Needless to say it scared the life out of me. I ran up the hill to the other cabin to tell Chris that our fireplace blew up, and so Chris ran down the hill to see the fireplace, sitting there quietly, looking innocent. After a few minutes, **WHHOOOOSSSHHHH** this time it caught me so off guard that I literally jumped out of my skin and the bottle of water I was holding went all over the floor. At that point I couldn’t tell what had scared me the most, the fireplace or the scream that came out of Christopher. Chris ran up the hill and got another guy from our church to come down and look at it. It continued to release pressure and blow out smoke, turning our cabin into what looked like the local bowling alley with piles of smoke lingering. After a long period of time the fireplace calmed down and we went to play cards. We came back that night to get ready for bed and it sounded like the fire had went out, so I opened the door. When I did the oxygen from the room poured in and caused the fire to roar out of control again. I closed the door and we stood there for a moment. Relieved that it wasn’t doing it anymore, we went about our business when suddenly **WHHOOOOSSSSHHHHH** this time causing me to stumble backwards, slam into a shelf, and crawl out the door onto the outside deck where I sat in pain for quite some time. That was a terrible night.

6. I had to ride back with the caravan of over 40 people on the way home. I have decided that flying beats driving any day!

If you would like to see more pictures of our Wyoming mission trip CLICK HERE.

Pressed