Hot and Ready

Our original plans yesterday were to go door-to-door handing out flyers for the Community Harvest Party and Trunk or Treat.  We had to run into town and figured we’d put up a few flyers there until we got back to Bear Lake to do the door-to-door outreach. I know the idea of going door-to-door for just about anything scares the living daylights out of people (especially city people) but it is the cheapest and most effective method of “advertising” here in the hinter lands.

As sometimes happens, since we had the whole family in the van, once we got to town our plans changed.  We decided to head into Erie (an hour drive) because we needed to buy some tissue paper for Amy’s home built pinatas, and that we’d hand out flyers when we got back. It ended up taking us going to three different stores to find tissue paper (orange and black were needed) and then we were a bit later in the day getting back.  On the way home, I saw a billboard for “Hot and Ready” pizza in the small town that is nearest us and we decided to pick some up for later, in spite of the fact that we were all stuffed, from having stopped at Sam’s club that had an extraordinary amount of samples, including fish, steak, sausage, chicken brats, and a host of other things.

We had decided to go work at the church and to continue cleaning up there and knew that the kids would get hungry later despite their protestations to the contrary earlier. We needed something that was quick, easy, and could be eaten without having to worry about cooking it.  We opted for that pizza joint that has the “Hot and Ready” pizza for $5.55 each.  It was on the way home, it was cheap to buy two pizza’s and even if the pizza got cold it was still easy to eat.  I also knew, from our former forays into cleaning that the local neighbor kids would probably stop down as soon as they saw that we were cleaning the church.

We checked the mail as we pulled into the church driveway and then proceeded to my office door to go in and begin cleaning.  As we began to clean, sure enough a couple of the neighbor boys came over to help.  Now, depending on who shows up, I usually use the word “help” pretty loosely, but these two boys actually are quite helpful.  From what I understand, I should be impressed with that based off of their reputation from school.  The older, bigger boy, beat up one of Noah’s friends from school from what I understand… but both of these boys have been nothing but polite and helpful to us.

I’m a bit of a “perfectionist” when it comes to the “how-to” of a job.  I was outside using a flat blade shovel to scrape the dirt and grass back to the edges of the concrete walkway up to the church.  I had a rhythm down and was moving along pretty quickly when the older boy (I know their names, I just don’t feel comfortable sharing them here) asked, “Can I help? You told me the last time I came over that I could mow the lawn but it doesn’t look like you have the lawn mower here.”  I looked at him and almost said no…  You see, I was faster, better equipped, larger and more capable to get the job done.  But God smote my heart and said to me “this isn’t about grass on sidewalks Bob”.

I said, “Sure, you can help, here’s the shovel and here’s what we are trying to do.” He took the shovel and really struggled so I showed him how to keep the blade flat and how to slam it under the edge of the grass.  He only lasted for about 5 minutes and then his younger brother wanted to try.  I had moved on to cleaning in the church and the older boy wanted to run the Shop Vac, so we let him.

So as we were cleaning, I asked the boys if they had eaten dinner and they said, “Yeah.”  I said, “That’s too bad because we have some pizza…” “Oh, we’re still hungry though!”. I figured as much, so we took a break to eat dinner.  It was then that the miraculous thing called “ministry” began to take place.  Actually, it was then that I realized that it was taking place the whole time that they had come over to help.  It was revealed how in the next bit of conversation. I asked where the boys lived (I knew, but it was conversation) and how they were related.  They said they were “Step brothers” and went to explain that “We have the same mom but none of us have the same dad”.  So, they are half brothers. The discussion moved to their “favorite dad” they ever had and how the one had only seen his real dad once in his life.

Ministry had happened all night long while I was working so that we could “begin ministering”.  It’s funny how that works.
We hope to continue to minister and to be able to show these boys that they have a heavenly father that won’t forsake them, ever.  We hope to be “Hot and Ready” with not only Pizza, but with an answer of hope.

2 Timothy4: ²Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season *** and I Peter 3:15 But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear:

- Sounds like being Hot and Ready to me…  Pray for these boys please.  Pray for their salvation.  Pray that God graces them with the understanding of their standing with him and how Jesus paid their way.

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