"Look - they're letting me leave the country. I wonder if they'll let me back in!"

No Rest For The Weird

Well, I’m back at home in Beebe, and things are back to their normal pace – hectic. I’m not complaining one bit, no sir!

We just wrapped up a week of Vacation Bible School that the Garner & McRae United Methodist Churches did in combination this year. Julie led the summer fun, but half a dozen other folks came every night to pitch in, and we averaged about fifteen kids each evening. Awesome!

I want to thank all of the following kids for coming, and if you see any of ‘em, why you just congratulate them on their efforts: Angel Barnes, Hunter Bennett, Lolli Hill, Nelson Howell, Paige Howell, Brenda Jean Kelsey, Shelby Langley, Tatum Mixon, Bailey Mixon, Katy Pacheco, Ron Pacheco, Jasper Shores, Jacus Shores, Ryan Swafford, Riley Swafford and Rob Swafford.

These kids did an extra-special job of raising enough quarters to complete a project with Heifer International, and their efforts will go towards helping a poor family in a foreign country start a livestock project.

“Who You Callin’ Heifer?”

Now hold on just a minute! Don’t tell me you haven’t heard of Heifer International. Why, their international headquarters is right here in Central Arkansas! They just built a “State of the art” building in downtown Little Rock (right across the street from the Clinton Presidential Park) that is so environmentally friendly that it’s won architectural awards.

You want to know more? Well, go take a look at www.heifer.org.

..err, I meant “Weary”

It got rather boring in Africa, without the regular pressures of my “normal” life, and without the distractions that can so easily fill our days. When things were slow in Tanzania, the guys in my villages sat around and played “draughts”, which is the English version of checkers. I was real tempted to clear off those little, plastic bottle caps they were using for checkers, and set up my own chess pieces on their board. It was a constant temptation, but I was already “standing out in a crowd” and didn’t want to draw any more attention to myself. Besides, I don’t think they’d have taken too kindly to my interrupting their pastime.

They had a lot of that “pastime” – with an average annual income of just $250 (less than a dollar a day), and an unemployment rate estimated at over 20% (over 40% for young adults). No unemployment insurance, government student loans, welfare and only government assistance for a few critical illnesses… if you were well and without opportunities for employment, you’d have lots of “pastime” too.

Maybe that’s why I work at the pace I do. Some folks might call it “work”, but I like to look at it as “opportunities”. We have so many opportunities around us, even here in the depressed economy of the Delta, that it just seems a shame to waste them.

It probably goes back to that old guilt trip my parents laid on me when I didn’t want to eat all my dinner, “Why, those starving kids in Korea would LOVE to have those lima beans to eat.” “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth.”

2 Timothy 2:14