When I was a kid I used to long for Saturdays to roll around. It seemed like Saturday would never get here. On Saturday I could get up and watch cartoons all morning and play all afternoon. I would be so excited about watching cartoons I’d wake up before any TV stations signed on the air for day. (Remember when TV stations were NOT on the air 24/7?) Now it seems like weekends come and go as fast as fence posts when you are driving down the highway.
THE WEEKLY SCHEDULE. One thing that make the weeks fly by is simply the schedule for each week. I believe the extracurricular things take over. The boys have Cub Scouts on Mondays, and there’s church (with our AWANA Club) on Wednesdays. Now that Jenna is on the ball team many of her afternoons are tied up with practice and there are games on Mondays and Thursdays (as a 6th grader she plays on the B team so her games are early). When Upward Basketball starts up in a couple of weeks that will take another night and Saturdays out of the loop.
If you read this and think I am complaining you have misunderstood the spirit in which this was written. I am thankful we can do all these things. It is so easy to go through the year and take our health and opportunities for granted. It is too easy to forget how many people in the world (and throughout history) have simply struggled to survive. All the things that are a normal part of our lives -- a comfortable home, an abundance of food, good health, and leisure time to to pursue things we enjoy -- are simply an unattainable and unimaginable luxury for so many. If I am sort of down about any of this it is because of the question that keeps nagging me from the back of my mind, “Am I pleasing God with all this excess?”
BASKETBALL. As I mentioned above, Jenna’s ball schedule is on full swing. She’s played in two games so far (and gotten about two minutes of playing time in each game). I haven’t seen her play yet. I had an eye appointment scheduled on top of one game and was teaching a workshop during another. Vicki sys Jenna is discovering middle school ball is totally different from Upward ball.
THE CHEMO IS OVER. Pauline has completed this round chemotherapy! She’s had a scan after it was over and the spot they saw back in August has shrunk about 80%. She will consult with a radiologist after Thanksgiving. We’ll keep you posted.
A CLARIFICATION. I want to make a clarification here since my article about the Upward Basketball evaluation prompted a couple of you to reply to last week’s newsletter. I will agree, that really isn’t an experience a kid should have in a ministry based organization, and Ben had every right to feel the way he did that night. However I was so pleased to see Ben decide on his own to focus on playing harder and better that I never pursued it any further. I knew that kind of fight was in him somewhere, and I was glad to see it come to the surface.
I must thank Sabrina Freeland for the additional information I can give you this week. To make a long story short, Ben misread the form that night. The Upward Basketball Registration Form has a section that is filled out by a coach when the child is doing their evaluation. When Ben was done the coach handed him his form so naturally he looked to see how he did. This section has places to record left-side, right-side, and lane shooting as well as dribbling with either hand and doing the defensive slide (or shuffle). What happened was that Ben’s eyes strayed up to the section the PARENTS are supposed to fill out where he saw the question “Would you be willing to coach your child’s team?” Since I know nothing about basketball and Vicki is too busy we marked “no.”
When we pointed this out to Ben he gave us a sheepish grin. All he would say was, “I’m still going to play extra hard,” but I think he was glad to know the coach didn’t say that about him. Thanks again, Sabrina!
COMMUNITY THANKSGIVING. Our church hosted a community Thanksgiving service tonight. Five other churches participated. We kicked things off with a meal (each church was responsible for different foods) and then had our service. This is one of those things I look forward to every year and this year lived up to expectations. I was really blessed.
THE EXPRESS LANE. I didn’t run sound a church tonight, but they had so many gremlins in the sound system during rehearsal I decided to sit in the balcony to give them a hand in the service if they needed it. Ben sat with me. We served the Lord’s Supper during the service so when that started I slipped down to relieve Jeff, who was running sound, so he could go receive communion (we learned a long time ago never to leave a sound system unattended). Ben saw me get up and assumed I was going down to take communion right then.
For those of you who have not been to our church we have what’s called loge seating on either side of the sanctuary along the steps going up to the balcony. When I noticed Ben was not with me at the sound board I looked around and spotted him just as he was sitting on the handrail at the top of the loge. I could only shake my head in disbelief as I watched him slide down the rail past about ten pews of people to the foot of the loge and right to the front of the line. All I can say is that I’m trying to raise my heathens right.
Joe
