A Carpenter At Work Creating:

This is a photo a my good friend Mike.  Mike is a lot of things.  It is never wise to suggest that any one person is just one thing.  Mike, for example, is a faithful and loving husband.  Mike is a caring father.  Mike is an adoring grandfather whose eyes light up when someone gives him the opportunity to talk about those precious children.  Mike is also a business man, entrepreneur, manager, risk taker, hunter, student of life, lover of his God.  Mike is also humble enough to never write about himself in the way I have just written.  Mike is also a professional carpenter, and it is this characteristic I would like to expand upon.

Sadly, in our culture, the term amateur connotes someone of lesser skill.  The root meaning of amateur comes from the idea of loving; to do something for the love of it, with passion and care, not for monetary reward, but for the joy derived  from the act of loving.  As I have stated, Mike is a professional carpenter.  At the same time he remains an amateur for he never let go of the love of wood working he has had for much of his life.

Mike is also an amateur teacher.  The best kind!

Carpenter/teacher is the parallel I want to explore.  Mike had me over to his shop a week ago.  I am most interested in knowing the practical applications of a good router and router table.  I have a family member who has a home restoration project that could possibly benefit from having such a tool and set up.  Some old things in their home might benefit from not being restored, but rather re-manufactured.  We are looking to make new moldings, casings, baseboards that are authentic to the period in which the home was built, but new, clean, lasting, and brilliantly functional.  How to do this is the challenge.  Mike has the experience and knowledge to shed some light on the subject.

Mike selected a router bit to demonstrate how a router would work in an application we were contemplating.  His knowledge about tools is extensive.  Each bit makes a different cut, produces a unique shape.  There are principles to setting the job up accurately.  There are safety considerations.  The type of wood, its thickness, hardness, color, length all come into play.  The shape desired drives the decision as to what bit to use.  There is the speed of the router, the feed rate, tensioning of the feather boards, which hold the work piece in place.  There is much knowledge required to attain the desired outcome.

Mike's knowledge comes through time and experience.  I learned on this day in his shop; there are no shortcuts in quality carpentry.  Mike taught me many things.  This was perhaps his greatest message.

Jesus was a carpenter.  Jesus, who Mike in many ways is like, was a teacher too.

He who was and is and is to come certainly has experience on His side.  One look at a periodic table and it is readily apparent that our Creator has all the tools he needs.  Interesting that when He came to us as a man, He chose to be a carpenter by trade.  He took instruction from Joseph and he shaped His wood-- whose rings represent the passage time, the grace He bestowed and bestows upon His creatures,  into beautiful and useful objects for His neighbor's needs.  The wood was once alive, but died, then made alive again by the carpenter's hands.  In doing so he must have been patient.  He must have known that there were no shortcuts.  Not with a router, but with His hands, he shaped, bent, drilled, pegged, joined one piece to another.  It is very intimate work, even when you use a powered tool.  He recreated with His hands, but more importantly, through His love.

Mike makes beautiful things with wood.  Jesus makes beautiful people with His grace.  Mike teaches from love as did Jesus.  Mike shares his passion with patience.  Jesus' patience is manifest in that we are hear, that we breathe, that we can love at all.  Love, knowledge, patience, material, tools, time all come into "making."

Thank you, Mike, for teaching me.  Thank you, Lord, for making me...whole.  

Things Begin To Happen:

Well, here I am at Timber Bay for the first coed camp of 2011.  We had about 47 high school boys and girls and spent Friday night through Sunday afternoon enjoying what was a perfect winter weekend in north central Minnesota.  The temperatures were in the low 20's, but there was little or no wind.  Snow was up to the knees and more in the woods with piles plowed as high as eight feet.  Little Whitefish Lake was frozen solid with at least thirty inches of hard, clear ice to hold us up.

The theme of the camp had to do with finding shelter for living in the wisdom of God.  We covered numerous Gospel stories in four chapels.  I was allowed to teach two of them and considered it the greatest of privileges.   I spent the two nights with about six young guys who are very interested in hearing God's word.  They also had much to add to my life and teach me.

We had a number of interesting activities.  Our first was to build shelters for eggs out of straws and masking tape.  The object was to see if we could build a sheltering system, which would protect the eggs when they were dropped from progressively higher levels.  We were amazed that all of the six or seven groups, who made packages, survived the first two levels.  The winner actually survived a nearly ten foot drop to a concrete floor.  Another activity was doing a scavenger hunt to find the different types of shelters that are in the woods, either shelters built by animals, or those built by people.  Some youth built different types of primitive shelters.  Igloos were common because of the plentiful snow, but some built shelters out of pine bows and other available materials.  The last activity was a polar plunge where we cut a six by four foot hole in the lake ice.  Leaders and students jumped into the frigid water.  Coming out of the water the plunger was surrounded by loving friends with blankets, towels, and were ushered up to one of our beautiful lodges where they had opportunity for a good hot shower, some hot chocolate, and to sit by a beautiful fire to warm themselves.  Waconia's area director, Mark McKeever, was the person who put the lessons and themes together.  It was educationally as tight as could be.  Many opportunities for teachable moments and discussions were provided and taken advantage of.  It was a beautiful thing.

Food was great too!

I sometimes can't believe that I get to do this type of work.  I am so thankful.

At Long Last, A New Beginning

As of January first I am actively working as an area director for Timber Bay.  Our territory will be the towns of Maple Grove/Osseo, Minnesota.  There will be young people from perhaps Rogers, Corcoran, Champlin, and Plymouth who may come in contact with us as those towns are near by.  However, our main focus will be Maple Grove/Osseo and their junior and senior high schools.  Our ministry will work with youth from 7-12th grades.  Currently we are in the process of making contact with school counselors, representatives from the police forces, and area churches.  This is all very exciting.

In the past year I have been focusing on the support raising side of the puzzle, the critical element needed to put "boots on the ground."  Thanks to many wonderful people we've reached critical mass and am now able to move forward.  Support raising never ends.  It is a process.  Contacting new people and maintaining contact with those who currently support Timber Bay will be as important to the ministry as breathing is to life.  I enjoy this aspect of the ministry very much.  It is not hard to talk about young people who are in need.  I look forward to our support base growing along with the population of youth who attend our programs.

The development of volunteer staff is now beginning.  In the past year I've spoken with a number of adults, from college age on up, who have a heart for at risk youth.  We will be contacting them in the near future, filling out forms, doing back ground research, and interviewing in detail.  It will be exciting to see what the Lord brings to the ministry with regards to volunteers, their spiritual gifts, and passion for at risk youth.

Off we go!  Moving from strength to strength, with hope and prayer.

I wonder who that first young person will be?  Please pray for that specific youth!