God is so amazing!

Last week I had the oppoturnity to attend a UM ARMY camp in Beaumont Texas. We were working in the community to clean up some of the damage caused by Rita and generally show the love of God to the whole City.

I knew going into the week that the work was only a side job to the real purpose of showing Christ's love, but the work was still important to me. I never would have thought I would have seen God's hand so clearly so many times through out the whole week. I saw family after family so overjoyed that someone, anyone, came to help them. I saw students begin to understand the whole impact of the call to true servanthood and discipleship of God. I saw my self doing things and leading folks to tasks and callings that could not have been done under human power.

Through out the week I had the honor of being the only Work Team Adult who also was working as part of the programs team. During the day, from 7 am till 5ish in the evening, I was working construction type of work, rebuilding handrails, painting, siding replacement. I was helping right along with the students, and I think that despite some slight issues we had with motivation and organization that we got the right work done right. During the evenings after meetings and paperwork from 6 till 8 I was working on teambuilding and eating, and boy were there some great things in both of those. 8 till midnight or 12:30 or so was worship time, and programs work, soundchecks, running the sound board, light controls, helping out with worship, setup, breakdown, everything that I was able to help with.

Needless to say I was totally exhausted at the end of the week, 5 or 6 hours of sleep a night, and lots of work during the day, made for a long week.

Client night this year was such a powerful thing for me, some of my Team's clients actually showed up and joined us. Now the way we met them was totally God. I was sitting at dinner with my team and 2 elderly black folks, who were obviously a couple sat down at our table. I was slightly bummed as none of our clients had shown up yet. I was talking to our guests and introduced myself and the group and offered to "adopt" them as our clients for the night and asked their names. They introduced them selves as the Adams family and said that we had replaced some windows for them. As I sat there it dawned on me that sitting there was actually the clients we had worked for the day before. I had talked to their daughter the day before and never met them. When I realized this it was like a burden was lifted from my whole time with UM ARMY. I had never before had a client show up, and I had never had one want to step to the front of the sanctuary and tell the whole gathered assembly what our kids had done for her. It was a powerful night all around, we had folks crying, laughing, and preaching. We changed folks homes, hearts, and even some outlooks on lives. We had folks testify to being scared of teenagers until a group completely rehabilitated a family home. We had women praseing God simply for replacing 5 window panes, or some siding and putting a good handrail in place for a wheelchair ramp.

If you ever doubt that God exists, go to a client night at UM ARMY, visit a work site, talk to someone who has gone. It is one of the most powerful spiritual retreats I have ever been on and one of the most effective mission trip also. A week like that can totally revitalize a dry spirit or kindle the fire in a new believer. This was the sort of week that sticks with you for a long time.

I would love to tell me, so please drop me an email and I will fill in some of the other details or stories.

Later Ya'll, Happy 4th, Praise God, Love freedom,