Days 10/11: The Weekend Wrap-Up

Whoever said fasting gets easier is a liar. Maybe that’s too strong. Let me try again.

Whoever said fasting gets easier is either a liar or I am weak and rely on food way too much. Through 11 days I don’t think the temptation is any less but I do believe I’m just better at saying “no” to food. All weekend I seemed to have been tempted by food. It didn’t help that on day 9 we discovered anything with yeast is a big “no-no” so there goes our whole grain bread. I’ll miss you FL-T sandwich (facon, lettuce, minus tomato).

Last night we had a launch team gathering for the Pursuit and I was blown away by my church. When I say “my” I don’t mean it as “I own this church” but “I am proud to be a part of this church.” One of the members on our team is a teacher in Detroit who was given incredibly difficult circumstances to teach in. She wasn’t given enough desks or chairs for her second graders. During the first few days several kids had to stand at their desks. She was basically given an empty room. No supplies. No teaching tools. Just a room and a roster. And then there’s the kids…Several of the kids don’t have back packs but that’s the least of the worries. The school does have free breakfast and lunch for the kids but many of them hoard the food to take home to their younger siblings. One child had a stomach, when asked if she wanted to call home she said no because she felt better taken care of at school. Another child received a hug from her teacher and told our friend “that’s the first hug I’ve gotten in 2 years.”

Our church was moved and many were either in tears or near them as she told the story but instead of saying “how sad” to a person they said “how do we fix this? How can we be Jesus to these kids?” We’ve got an idea as to what that looks like and are really praying and exploring how we can help at least this class of kids.

Other weekend highlights:

- 7 football games this weekend. 3 Riverview Pirate games on Saturday and 2 flag games on Sunday. Good weekend for that!

- We had a going away party for my best friend and his wife. God has called them to move to Georgia and they leave this weekend. It hurt, really bad. This was a God given friendship that I cherish very much. Sure it may not seem manly to admit such a close friendship, but God clearly brought this couple into our lives for a reason and we’ll always be thankful for that.

- My oldest son turns 10 on the 17th. We sat down last night to watch some 9/11 documentary because he’s ready to know more about it. His teacher at school has done an excellent job educating him on this already, but it was sobering to sit together and watch. It was really painful to watch the fascinating documentary and it made it feel fresh. Looking back 10 years we can really see how that event has changed the world forever.

Carrie and I watched the memorial yesterday morning and it was powerful too. We were impressed that God was such a present subject in the service but as someone observantly pointed out last night, God’s name was there but Jesus was absent, at least as far as the politicians were concerned. Still, hearing President Obama read the 46th Psalm was moving.