Tim Weston

For the past three or four years, Christ UMC’s youth group, The Gathering, has participated in World Vision’s 30 Hour Famine (read about the 2007 30 Hour Famine).

Earlier today, I had to make a difficult, disappointing decision: I had to cancel this weekend’s 30 Hour Famine. The weather forecast called for four to seven inches of snow, eventually turning into sleet and freezing rain, so I called my pastor and spoke with him about the situation.

He said the only other events at the church tonight were Celebrate Recovery and AA, but that they make up their own minds as to whether or not they cancel an event. We discussed how some of the youth would have to travel a fair distance to get here (two of our students live about 30 minutes away), how we didn’t think driving the youth around town for the morning’s pantry raid was a good idea, and the fact that there were only going to be two leaders there as one of them had to work over the weekend.

After a few minutes of talking, we both agreed that canceling (or perhaps postponing–we haven’t decided yet) the event was, unfortunately, our best option. I thanked him for his time and guidance and then called the other leader. I explained the discussion and she agreed that it was probably for the best. I asked that she call one of the youth (her boyfriend/fiancé’s son) as well as those who were scheduled to prepare Saturday evening’s meal.

Finally, I called all of the youth (which was easy, as all schools in the area were closed today) and told them the plans. While some sounded indifferent about the cancellation (after all, that meant they’d be able to eat food today and tomorrow), there were a couple students who were really disappointed and asked if we were going to reschedule. I explained that such a decision hadn’t been made but they would be the first to know once it had.

I hope we can find a weekend sometime this spring when we can hold this event, but I’m not counting on it. Most people (including myself) already have their weekends planned for quite some time, so I’m guessing it will prove quite difficult. On a positive note, the money the youth raised will still go to help feed those who are less fortunate, so even if we can’t hold the event, the youth will have made a difference in the lives of others, which is what the event is really all about.

A couple days ago, I finished reading Max Lucado’s 3:16: The Numbers of Hope. I’d heard lots of rave reviews about Lucado’s books, but this is the first one I’ve gotten around to reading. The book stood out to me in a display at Barnes & Noble during my Christmas and New Year’s vacation: the reference to the famous verse in the Gospel of John takes up nearly the entire front cover with two nails serving as the two dots of the colon.The book is broken down into twelve chapters, each of them focusing on a portion of John 3:16:

¹⁶“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life…”

Lucado does a fantastic job summarizing the scripture in the first few pages of the book:

A twenty-six-word parade of hope: beginning with God, ending with life, and urging us to do the same. Brief enough to write on a napkin or memorize in a moment, yet solid enough to weather two thousand years of storms and questions. If you know nothing about the Bible, start here. If you know everything about the Bible, return here. We all need the reminder. The heart of the human problem is the heart of the human. And God’s treatment is prescribed in John 3:16.

He really hits the nail on the head here. If you’ve just discovered the amazing story that is the Holy Bible, John 3:16 can serve as a CliffsNotes synopsis. On the other hand, if you’ve read the Bible for years, John 3:16 is a great compass that can put us back on track.

There are countless passages in 3:16: The Numbers of Hope that caught my attention and made remember that Christ is truly the center of all things. I’d love to quote all of them here, but that wouldn’t give you much reason to buy the book and read it yourself, would it? I highly recommend this book for everyone with the slightest interest in Jesus and Christianity; it will either put things in a brand new light or reaffirm things you learned long ago but have since fallen out of focus.

I want to take a minute to say that the Pastor and the Director of Lay Ministries at my church are awesome people who do an excellent job working with volunteers.  I’m certain that they are doing what God has called them to do: making a difference in people’s lives and guiding them to Jesus.

Pastor Larry and Jaime, if you read my blog, thanks for all that you do for me and other volunteers at  Christ UMC!

Over the weekend I finished another great book by John Ortberg, Everybody’s Normal Till You Get To Know Them. The book focuses on community and overcoming our flaws and differences so we can form the life-changing relationships God designed and desires for us.

My favorite line in the book is “I’m somebody’s porcupine.” It served as a great summary to a section on a problem called the Porcupine’s Dilemma: How do you get close without getting hurt? The dilemma is named after the quill-covered rodent because when they fall in love, there’s a small window of opportunity and it closes quickly; once it’s closed, if the male approaches a female, it’s extremely likely he’ll be struck with some prickly quills.

The dilemma is not just one of a porcupine, though, as humans suffer from the same problem. We want to get close to others (not necessarily physically close), but we don’t want to get hurt. Inevitably, though, we are injured with barbs like resentment, contempt, envy and rejection.

The remainder of the book’s pages describe how we can get close to others without getting hurt, covering topics like authenticity, acceptance, conflict and empathy. I recommend that everyone read this book because, whether you realize it or not, you are somebody’s porcupine. Unlike the porcupine, though, our window of opportunity to become close with others is large, and this book can help prevent us from feeling the horrible sting of a porcupine’s attack.

Today I pose a question to the readers of this site (assuming there are any): What do you do if the members of a committee (all of whom are volunteers) which you lead need to meet and there isn’t a single day and time when everyone is available?

Do you a) meet when the most members are available, b) meet when the fewest members are available, c) “force” people to rearrange their schedules so the entire group can meet, d) hold the meeting by yourself and choose to do what you like, or e) other?

Feel free to answer with a comment… or not.

Yesterday afternoon, The Gathering met at 12:15 to go ice skating at the Sunbury Ice Skating Rink. Once everyone had arrived, someone mentioned that Selinsgrove had a skating rink where everything was free. Having lived here almost ten years (four years in college, five years as an employee), I was surprised I’d never heard of it, but I figured it was worth a shot. After all, if it wasn’t very good, we could head up to Sunbury for the remainder of the afternoon.

When we got to the rink, I was pleasantly surprised; it was in great condition except for a few places where it was beginning to melt (the volunteers forgot to cover the surface with water the night before). The rink had five or six portable hockey goals and there was a small building right off the ice where visitors rent shoes and borrow hockey sticks (including ones for lefties!) and pucks, as well as purchase snacks and warm up by a fire.

The youth all got skates and we headed out to the rink to skate and play some hockey. I’m not very comfortable on ice skates, so I went out with my shoes on, which made it much easier for playing hockey. One of the girls wasn’t sure she wanted to skate, but I asked her to try it out for a bit so she did; 20 minutes and two sore ankles later, she brought her skates back to the building and returned to the ice with shoes, just like me. The two of us spent quite a bit of time practicing hockey passes and shots, primarily one timers right in front of the net. They weren’t high-speed one timers like the pros perform in the NHL, but after several times she got the hang of it!

After about an hour, the whole group decided to play hockey, so we spent the remainder of our time passing pucks and shooting them at (not necessarily in) the goals. We had a blast being outside playing a game few of us were very familiar with. When everyone was tired, we returned to the building to drop our stuff off and enjoy hot dogs and soda by the warm fire. Not long after, we piled into our cars and went back to church where we waited for parents to pick up their kids.

The afternoon was a blast and, from all signs, the youth really enjoyed it. Though we don’t have time set aside in our schedule to go back, I’d like to find an afternoon or evening when we can go back for round two!

Saturday afternoon, my youth group went up to the Ronald McDonald House at Geisinger Medical Center
to prepare a meal for the families who were staying there. Unfortunately, because the event was on a Saturday, we only had three youth and four leaders attend.

Soon after arriving, we started preparing dinner of spaghetti and meatballs, garlic bread, salad and cake (already made to save time). As it turned out, it was nice that there were only a few youth with us as it allowed them to be involved with the preparation. If we’d had many more people in the kitchen, there would have been a lot of standing around.

While we waited for the meal to finish cooking, we spent time talking with the families that were staying there. One family we met had a daughter in the hospital and three other children with them at RMH. One of the children, a young girl, happened to be celebrating her eighth birthday on Saturday, so I ran down to the local Weis Markets to purchase candles and matches for one of the cakes. Shortly after I got back, we brought the cake out to her and sang “Happy Birthday” to her; she was pleasantly surprised! Though I’m sure it wasn’t the ideal place to spend a birthday, we did what we could to brighten up her day.

I also had the good fortune to meet the family I learned about the day before. Sure enough, their daughter had been in the hospital for the past five months and they’d been staying at RMH the entire time. They didn’t say where they were from, but the mother did say that their home was about two hours north of the hospital.

Even though preparing the meal was very quick and easy, we received many thanks from the families we met. One young woman told me, “Thanks very much for dinner. Having a freshly made dinner reminds me of home.” Her saying that made me realize that it doesn’t take much to help someone in need and reminded me of Matthew 25:35-40:

‘…³⁵For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, ³⁶I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

³⁷“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? ³⁸When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? ³⁹When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

⁴⁰“The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.’

If you have a Ronald McDonald House in your area, I highly recommend contacting them about providing meals.  Heck, you probably don’t even to prepare the meal there if you don’t have time; you could make it at home and deliver it along with reheating instructions.  It’s a great way to help others who are in need and have lots of other stuff on their minds.

Friday night, members of The Gap got together and traveled to Geisinger Medical Center in Danville to help the NICU staff organize some care packages and binders for parents who have a newborn child staying in the intensive care unit.

When we arrived at the hospital, we split into two groups to tackle the two projects; the girls took care of assembling 150 care packages provided by the March of Dimes and the guys assembled 24 binders. Even though there were only three of us, it didn’t take the guys long to put together the binders, so we helped the NICU staff move some things to storage on a different floor of the hospital.

On our way back up from the storage area, I asked the staff member (I believe her name was Cindy) if she could show us around the NICU. She said that she would be glad to, but she couldn’t take us inside the NICU because the babies are very susceptible to the weakest of colds that we often carry.

I was amazed to find out that the department has 38 beds that are almost always full and that the average stay for a NICU baby is a month, though one patient has been there for five months. Cindy also pointed out some of the equipment they use, including an incubator with a blue light attached to the top of it. I asked if the device was used to keep the child warm, but it turned out to be a phototherapy light used to treat newborns with neonatal jaundice.

It was great to be able to help the NICU staff, but it was a sobering experience.  I had no idea there were so many children in NICUs, and this was only one hospital.  I hope that I can bring my youth group up sometime soon to help the staff, as they were very appreciative we could help them.  A project that took a dozen young adults an hour would have taken a staff member several hours to complete, which means less time to be with patients and their families.

If you’re a member of a service organization that’s looking for projects, I highly recommend contacting your local/regional hospital’s NICU staff to see if there’s anything they need help with.

Last night was the first Bible study of the spring, but the high school girls wanted to talk about some things, so we spent the evening talking. Since I can’t share what we spoke about, the only thing I can say is that we finally made a decision about Impact 2008!!

Four of our students are going (all girls, three from high school, one from middle school) along with two adults. Unfortunately, I’m not one of the adults, as I’m attending a work conference in Washington, D.C. that week. Hopefully the girls will come back excited and spread the word about the weekend and it will get more students excited for next year’s conference.

Next Saturday we’re going to the Ronald McDonald House in Danville to prepare dinner for the families who are staying there. We were scheduled to do this last October, but we had to cancel at the last minute. The following Sunday, we’re going ice skating in Sunbury. After that, we have a few weeks of Bible studies, followed by the 30-Hour Famine and practice for Youth Sunday.

I ran across this video at Josh Griffin’s blog. Thanks, Josh!