What a day of blessings. First of all, I slept so well last night-comfortable, warm, and so fatigued it probably wouldn’t have mattered. The day was so beautiful. I believe the purpose of storms maybe so we appreciate the gift of what seem to be picture perfect days. People were so incredibly generous today-I won’t be able to count the blessings but will try.
There was the gift of firewood this morning! I was running low on Duraflame logs which are great for starting fires…but you can’t beat the real thing. The “wood” fire was very warm, comforting, and somewhat relaxing. Breakfast came about 6:30 AM and hit the spot plus it was a great visit. I was then greeted by Paul Grisham who sat with me for an hour and talked about all types of ministry opportunities from food ministry to what’s happening in Afghanistan. As time drew closer to 12:00 PM, I began to prepare to have lunch with the United Methodist Women’s group from Auburn UMC. This was their monthly missions luncheon and I was their speaker. What a great time with them! I was able to talk about life in the box and put that into context of what families face. Their generosity and care was so obvious when this group of about 35 women took up a collection of $866. Wow! I was a bit overwhelmed and touched to say the least. As I arrived back at the box, who did I see but my friend Page, ready to share lunch and some quality time. More visitors arrived throughout the afternoon…kids bringing me snacks, board members stopping by to check in, coworkers coming to see if I needed anything. It is very rare that we can experience such a pouring out of love and generosity. Then, I was greeted by the missions chair from AUMC who is very active in helping us do repairs in the community. In fact, their group is one of about four working this Saturday. Anyway, after some brief conversation he handed me a slip of paper and said he felt they were good for that-meaning their Mission’s Work Area. The amount was $3555.82. I blinked a few times, tried to pick up my jaw, stuttered a few moments and then realized I might get out of this box early…. That took our amount up to about $8000. Amazing!
As darkness settled in, I was served dinner and visited by many more friends, the Massey’s, the Fulgrum’s, and several Wesley Foundation students. As I close this night…I’m just in awe of God’s provision and more in touch with the responsibility we now have to serve others. There is so much to do-to release those captive in their own boxes, to work tirelessly at serving with others…what else is life for?
But I must leave you with the ditzy deal of the day. I am a latent pyro…be careful with me and fire. My fire pit was pretty inactive for most of the day so I didn’t think much when I went to dump the ashes into the Auburn UMC dumpster-the same church that just gave us $4000. But as a great pile of ashes poured into a dumpster filled with overstuffed plastic bags of trash, to include old ceiling tiles, boxes, and loose paper-I realized all the ashes from the bottom were still basically coals….and paper began smoldering very quickly…I tried to stamp it out…. Water was very much needed and that sent me on a trek to find a bucket. By the time I got back to the dumpster with water -what started as smolder and smoke was now wild, flames licking out from the edge! Oh, no! Twenty minutes later and several bucket fulls of water…I had it under control. It took nearly an hour to finally put that fire out mainly because I just had small buckets. I can say I did get my work out for the day. So, it was a little bit of action-more than I bargained for but I love great stories especially ones at my expense…
All is good, two more nights and can’t wait to see what the next days entail! Blessings!
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