Fall Tour, Day 4 & 5
December 8, 2011(Saturday, December 3, & Sunday December 4, 2011)
Saturday, we mostly just helped decorate the church (that is, Richfield Christian Fellowship – a church that has been a blessing to us, allowing us to stay there all the time), clean floors, and do other odd jobs as needed, then hung out and had an impromptu worship session at the beginning of the evening. We also played games – some of us played dutch blitz, or settlers, or other games that were around, and our leader and one of the students left to get us coffee from Tim Hortons. I asked for a medium French vanilla, and they came back with an extra-large for me. I drank the whole thing, and needless to say, was a little bit hyper for the rest of the evening. I did make sure to warn and apologize to people in advance for how ridiculous I would be for the rest of the evening. It was a brilliant time, and I definitely did not want that evening to ever be over.
It was a really good way to essentially end the trip, as Sunday was basically just hanging out with each other, enjoying the service, and heading back to the school. Before the service started though, Pastor Lorne had a small meeting with us, to thank us for everything we had done for him and the church the day before. He said they were blessed to have us helping them out, and he gave us a good lesson on how those are the acts that show a true ministry-oriented heart. We can preach and persuade people all we want, but if we are not willing to get down on our hands and knees and scrub a floor after, then we don’t deserve to be ministering in the first place. It was very powerful, and reminded me of something my mother had said to me a few weeks earlier, while helping me to clean a bathroom at school about half an hour after I had preached in chapel.
This is what life and ministry is, preaching one minute, scrubbing a bathtub the next. If we are too proud to be cleaning toilets, then we don’t deserve to be doing anything else in ministry. It is as simple as that. And it is something I will never forget. I pray that I will always be humble enough to clean a toilet, or scrub a floor, regardless of anything else that is going on.
This was Service Tour 2011 with Living Faith Bible College. Thanks to those of you who were praying for us, we really appreciated the support, and to everyone else, I hope you enjoyed experiencing a few days of my life with me. Be blessed.
