Parents, What Makes It All Worth It?** Words From COVID 19 quarantine

 Parents, What makes it all worth it? When one of the churches I served was between children’s ministers, the kids 4th-6th grade still planned on going to camp that had been planned before the last minister transitioned out. A very capable interim kids director said she would take the large group of upper elementary kids to camp. It was always a great camp experience, some wonderful leaders were going and it promised to be a time for lots of fun, growing together, and faith development. We were pleased in the transitional time that all the spots were filled and we had just enough leaders for the camp’s camper to counselor ratios. My children were all too young to go, and I was the young married adult pastor, so I was just prayer support for the leaders and kids going. A wonderful lady in the church wanted her grandson to go. This kid had been sent to grandma’s quickly, because of a family crisis. He had never been to camp, much less a church camp. He was from out of town, and didn’t have anyone around him who could teach him about the love of God except his grandmother and she only saw him occasionally. So, for some reason this sweet senior saint came to me after worship asking if this boy could go to camp. I didn’t make any promises, since registration had closed weeks ago and the camp was the next week. I told her I would ask the interim children’s director. The director gave me a good news, bad news situation… “the good news is we still have plenty of bunk and bus space for another kid, the bad news is we need another male counselor to stay in the bunkhouse with the kids to meet our required leader/camper ratios.” She said, if you can find another leader, this young man can go with us. God really laid this kid on my heart, so I searched and asked every man I could think of that morning, but couldn’t find anyone. Then I started telling God, surely you are not asking me to go, I have young kids at home and I have my whole young married ministry to do, I’m supposed to teach on Wednesday night, besides, I have a wedding rehearsal the day camp is over. The more I tried to back away from going, this kid and his grandmother kept coming back to mind. I could see the desperation on the grandmother’s face and the kid looked excited but was very guarded like he was used to feeling disappointment and hearing “no, you can’t…” There were so few positive faith influences for this kid, he may never hear about how much God loves him. So, after several minutes of checking with the entire staff of 14 ministers, I found someone whose schedule would let them take the last night and day or 2, so I could make the wedding rehearsal and he would teach my class, if I could take the rest of the week. So, I was able to tell the boy and his grandmother “Yes.” I went to camp. At the time, I had not had a lot of experience with elementary kids. I thought how bad could it be, right? Oh it was bad! Bananas sent by parents for snacks were flung everywhere in the bunkhouse during the “drive by fruiting incident.” These stinky elementary school boys who refused to take a shower had clothes all over the cabin (paying for my own camp days I guess, see http://williampmcg.blogspot.com/2020/07/parents-something-is-lost-and-must-be.html). They stuck fish-hooks in my fingers grabbing for fishing poles as I put the worms on them. I had sunburn and mosquito bites and no sleep on the rock hard bunk. At one point, I was concerned for my family when an F5 tornado was taking houses off their foundations not far from our home. I was way out of my comfort zone. I had no idea about disciplining other people’s kids who were out of control… I was just learning how to discipline my own preschoolers. I began feeling like Jonah, the reluctant prophet… I was complaining about everything. My attitude stunk like dirty camper socks. Although, I noticed the boy who got to come last minute was well mannered and listened intently to the messages each night. He was glad to be there. We had a great children’s camp pastor, who was a great teacher for kids. As my seminary professor used to say, “he could put the cookies on the bottom shelf so we could all understand” God’s great love for us. God was at work, but I was just too busy complaining to see it. On my last day, before the other minister came to finish the week, this boy, the boy who had been able to come because I came as a leader, came to stand next to me in the lunch line. Annoyed, I thought what is it now? Is he going to start complaining about something? My frustration from the week melted into shame, when he said, “I want to follow Jesus, what do I do next?” I led him through God’s plan to save us all: How God loved us so much He sent Jesus, His own Son to save us and let us connect our lives with Him now and forever. The boy recognized that he needed Jesus and said a prayer asking for Jesus to be with him all his life. I cried the whole drive back home… here I was complaining about how God had changed my plans, put me in a situation way out of my comfort zone and I couldn’t see God was at work changing this kid’s life forever.

The reluctant prophet Jonah was way out of his comfort zone too so he ran from God when God sent him to a wicked city to preach. Then when Jonah finally got there, he preached and the whole huge city was saved. Even then, Jonah was miffed at God. God is always more eager to save than destroy when people turn around and connect with Him...and Jonah knew it. The story says, “When God saw what they had done and how they had put a stop to their evil ways, he changed his mind and did not carry out the destruction he had threatened. This change of plans greatly upset Jonah, and he became very angry. So he complained to the LORD about it: “Didn’t I say before I left home that you would do this, LORD? That is why I ran away to Tarshish! I knew that you are a merciful and compassionate God, slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love. You are eager to turn back from destroying people.” Jonah 3:10 - 4:2 (NLT2) We gotta not be like Jonah, especially now, when people are so angry and confused about all the things going on in this world. We gotta be like God, like it says in v.4:2, we gotta be “slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love.” If we read God’s Book, we know destruction is coming eventually, but we need to be agents of salvation now, even if it means getting out of our comfort zones and loving people who haven’t been very nice to us or maybe even smelling dirty camper socks.

Hang in there people! God is with us! I’m Praying for us all!