My Old Kentucky Home
I was supposed to pray with the mission team heading to Kentucky yesterday morning. It's a tradition for the clergy to send teams off with a prayer, so I showed up at 7:00am, but they were already on the road. So I whispered a prayer anyway, asking God to bless them on their journey and in their work in the name of Christ. It brought back lots of Kentucky memories beginning with my four years at Asbury College followed by three years at Asbury seminary. Judy and I were married in between so the little 8 x 30 foot house trailer behind the seminary campus was our first home. Just a week after my graduation our first son Chris was born there, so in a sense Kentucky still has some feelings of "home" for us. Then our first mission work team experience came while we were in Dexter when we took a team to Henderson Settlement in the Redbird Missionary Conference. The boys were in elementary school and they still remember learning to chop sorgum in the humid Kentucky summer heat.
I think of that experience every summer as we send teams of adults, youth and children on mission work teams. As this team was taking off, the mission team to the UP was coming home. On Saturday I took part in the dedication of the new Habitat Homes in Pontiac, giving thanks for the larger number of our folks who helped. Now we are recruiting for the annual visit of the South Oakland Shelter in August. You can't be around this place very long without knowing that mission service is at the very core of what we do day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year.
This summer we are also working on the plans for the south wing renvoation after the success of the New Thresholds campaign. By fall we hope to be ready with a final plan for approval by the congregation and look foward to construction next year. These avenues of ministry--mission service and building renovation-- are not in conflict! They are simply two sides of the work of this church at home and around the world. Even as children move into the new home we built in Costa Rica, as mission teams repair homes in the UP and Kentucky and while we are building a Habitat home in Pontiac, we take care of the church home God has entrusted to us.
I'm thankful for my "old Kentucky home" and I pray for the team serving there this week. I am also proud of this facility, this home and the plans to update it. It's all just part of what we do around here.
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