One of the benefits of working on staff at a Christian organization is that you get to hear quality teaching and new perspectives about faith on an almost daily basis. Sometimes I take this for granted, but here lately, I’ve really tried to tune in and grab little nuggets of truth from the words of others to apply to my spiritual life. Friday night was a grand example of this. The Board of Directors for the camp was having their annual overnighter in a building on the grounds called The Dome and I was asked by Chuck Lehman, co-director of Rest Ministries, to come and be a part of the spiritual direction piece of the evening. This was great for me because this was the first year in the past 4 that I wasn’t going to be involved in the meeting, as I am now employed by the camp and no longer on the BOD (conflict of interest or something like that!). I really enjoy the other members though and looked forward to seeing them for a bit.

After that long intro, let me segue into the point of this story: Chuck started off the night talking about how God works in miraculous ways in our lives and we often just miss out on His work because we are too tuned into ourselves and the issues of this life. He cited some examples and then had us think of some in our own lives. I’d like to share a couple of those miracles with you, and encourage you to think in your own world of things that have happened with seemingly no good explanation and then ponder if perhaps God was involved in the mix (here’s a little hint…Scripture tells us that every good and perfect thing comes from above, so I’d venture a guess that He may have been involved if something fantastic and amazing came seemingly out of nowhere!).) I might also add before I get to my examples that the mere fact we wake up every morning in a world heated by a suspended ball of gas millions of miles away and can walk on a beach where the tide is controlled by a lifeless chunk of rock thousands of miles away, and have finely tuned senses related to organs so intricately designed that if even 1 of the thousands of parts were out of place we’d lose our sense of sight, smell, taste, or hearing are all miracles too profound for human explanation. In my world, the handiwork of an intelligent Designer capable of working in the miraculous is an ever present reality. I hope the same is true for you. Okay, moving on.

On Wednesday of last week, I went down to the office here at camp and talked with Donna, our accountant, about how my own personal fundraising was coming along and how far I was from my goal (to date, I am at about 40% of my monthly need). As we talked, she made a comment about not being billed for our health insurance these past few months. Armed with that knowledge, and curious to know the reason behind any company not taking every cent from us they could, I called our insurance provider and was shockingly informed that something had gone haywire in the billing/receiving of our bills, and our insurance, which was supposed to start in February when our former insurance ran out, had never even gone into effect. As such, we walked 2176.2 miles over mountains, rocks, and roots, and ate at every conceivable little nasty hole in the wall diner you can imagine without ever getting sick or injured, save for a little bout with Lyme Disease! Some might call that lucky, I call it a miracle, especially knowing my propensity for ankle and knee injury. At this point, we are seeking the best available and affordable coverage, but are also thanking God daily for His provision and protection on our hike. For us, no matter how you slice it, that’s a miracle!

Another miracle of note happened this week here at camp. We are constantly seeking new and better ways to introduce students and adults to Christ, and one of our driving passions is to introduce people in other cultures to the love of our Savior. With that in mind, we have a missionary come to the camp each summer from another part of the world and share with us what God is doing in his or her life. Last summer, and this coming summer as well, our missionaries were/are from the nation of Haiti and we are partnering with them to build the first Christian camp in the entire country. To raise awareness of the living conditions and help churches prepare for a trip to Haiti, or any other nation in the 3rd world, we have been busily collecting used building materials for use in constructing our very own 3rd world village. It will have a system of huts connected to a central fire pit/cooking area and we’ll be able to house guest groups in this village, teach them about other cultures, and prepare them for their work abroad. In order to pull this off, we need a tremendous amount of lumber, concrete blocks, and other miscellaneous materials (we’re still looking for thousands of used concrete blocks if anyone has any leads). As I was searching for some of these items, I called the lumber company where my brother works down in Bedford. His boss, anda good friend of ours, told me they would hold back any junk pallets and such they came across and we could come and pick them up. This was helpful, but would hardly make a dent in our materials list. As I thanked Robert (the boss man) and we said our farewells, something in my heart prompted me to ask him to keep his eyes open for anyone who might have an old shed or building they wanted torn down andwere willing to donate the junk materials. The prompting in my heart was immediately confirmed as having been from God when Robert informed me that Bender Lumber (the company my brother works for) had a huge storage facility inside one of their warehouses that they had been trying to find someone to tear down for them and they would be willing to donate all the lumber to whoever did the dirty work. I said we’d be happy to do just that if Corporate was willing to donate to a non-profit organization. Long story short, they were willing and Melissa and I went to check out the facility when we were in Bedford for Luke’s birthday (check-out previous post). The following picture shows just how massive the structure is that we’ll be tearing down.

That’s Melissa you see in the foreground. After seeing the lumber available, we estimate it will take at least 2 semi trailer loads to get it all to the camp. We also estimate it will build the entire 3rd world village, a desperately needed 2nd storage building at camp and perhaps even a much needed garage on one of the camp houses! You can’t tell me that isn’t a miracle, especially considering the finances at camp are presently in such a state that we aren’t even yet sure how we’ll buy the gas to get down to Bedford to tear it apart! During a season of the camp’s life that we are more thinly spread financially than ever before, God saw fit to produce a miracle so big that only He can get the credit for it! (On a logistical note, we plan to tear down the structure December 17-19 and then pull nails and haul it off December 22-23. We’d love all the help we can get to pull this off so feel free to comment on this post or email me at joe.wisley@rainbowcamp.org for more details. Have access to a flatbed semi trailer? We need a couple of those as well!)

Those are just two of the endless miracles that God performs in and around us on a daily basis. I think one of the great tragedies of life is that we’re all too often willing to give God credit (blame) for terrible things in our lives (which really don’t come from Him at all) but we’re seldom willing to ascribe credit to Him for the miraculous. May we live today, and everyday, keenly aware of the miraculous presence of God in our lives!

One final note…Bender Lumber is a top notch company! If you live close to one of their stores, consider giving them the blessing of your business in response to the blessing they’ve been for the Kingdom of God (I make this comment completely on my own and without any prompting from Bender Lumber)!

Couldn’t think of anything clever to go with for the title! The last week has been crazy! I’ll start with Sunday, which was a fantastic day for Melissa and me. We got the chance to go back down to Anderson and visit Bethany, my former church of employment. I spoke with the student ministry about our trip and got to show some of our pictures. It was only a 45 minute presentation, but it helped to scratch a couple itches I’ve been having for the past several weeks. Those two itches are the itch to speak and the itch to spend time with students. It made the experience even sweeter considering it time spent with students that Melissa and I know and love (Thanks Tim, for giving us the chance to feel like old times, if only just for the day!). After church, we headed over to have lunch with Chad and Traci Pigg, two of our favorite people in the world. It was great to see them and to spend some time hearing about their lives and story. All in all, Sunday was a great day to be alive! We are so thankful for the network of friends we have all over the country.

Another highlight of the week was that I finally got my old 1988 Toyota truck running. It is pretty much the coolest vehicle in the world, from the rusted out side panels to the over-sized tires all the way down to the gaping hole in the dash where the radio used to be! I’m not sure why I like it so much, especially considering that it only goes about 50 mph as a top speed and the starter takes about 40-50 hits before it actually turns over, but I still think I’ve got a fantastic ride! Melissa makes disparaging comments from time to time, but I think she’s just jealous.

Still another highlight of the past week was the arrival of Luke James Wisley, my little nephew compliments of my brother James and his wife Janice. We drove down to Bedford on Tuesday for the birth and finally got to see him around 11:30 that night. What a cute little guy! Wisleys always throw cute babies! Here’s a picture of him only about 2 hours into the real world!

Finally, today, I had a 53 minute (my office phone told me) conversation with a former student of mine and it was one of the best conversations I’ve had in a long time. He is living his life for the Lord and excited to see what God wants to do in his life. It was a very uplifting conversation and I hope to have many more with him in the future.

Finally (again), with the exception of a cute baby picture, this post has been much too nice and easily forgettable. As such, I offer my gripe of the day for you: What is the big deal with moving straight from Halloween to Christmas? It drives me nuts that the entire country seems to have forgotten about the idea of Thanksgiving. Instead, we are happier to go from a selfish holiday where the premise is to actually do someone harm if they don’t give you candy to another selfish holiday that, even though the original intent was to celebrate the birth of our Savior (and many still see it as such), celebrates the fabricated story of a fat B&E artist who’s only purpose in life is to, that’s right, give more candy and other stuff to our consumer driven, self-obsessed American children. Don’t get me wrong, I love opening up a package that someone lovingly picked out for me and is excited to see my reaction, I really do. The thing that I hate though about this entire holiday season is the lack of appreciation and thankfulness for the many blessings that we have. So, do me a favor, if you put up that Christmas tree of yours before the 4th Thursday in November, at least let it remind you to be thankful. And if some little child that you know and love comes to you in November begging for the latest toy/gift they won’t use two weeks later, whack them on the head with a turkey leg and tell ‘em to count their blessings! Thoughts? Retorts? Accusals? I welcome them all!

Okay, this is all I’ll say about the election. Obama has inherited a system that is broken. Our world is broken, and I wish him well in his efforts to fix it. However, I don’t hold my breath. The reality of this world is that we’ll always have recessions. The poor will always be with us. Evil will always fight good. Racism will forevermore rear it’s ugly head. Republicans will hate Democrats, and the opposite will always be true as well. No one, short of our Savior, will ever bring about the sweeping changes that will cure the ills of our fallen society. As such, may our hope be found in Christ and not in man or his institutions. Okay, I’m done.

I’m sorry for the lull in communication. No real good excuses, I just haven’t felt very inspired to write as of late. Oh sure, there have been moments of clarity, but most of them have come at times uncondusive to sitting at my desk and typing away. I miss the simplicity of knowing that each day I had the chance to sum up the events of our hike for that 24 hour period as succinctly and yet cleverly as possible. I wanted to make this blog a discipline of sorts, and I guess I can always start again today. Seems the pressures of routine drive out the desire for creativity at times. i’ll try to do better.

I’ve been reading a marvelous book the last few days called “The Signature of Jesus.” It is by a guy named Brennan Manning and might have more yellow ink from my highlighter in it than any book I’ve read. While I would love to pass on to you every highlighted and dog-eared page, I’ll start with a paragraph that seems relevant in light of the fact that almost every exit poll taken last night showed that the main concern for voters was the economy. If you add to that the fact that more than half of this great country claims Jesus as Lord, you can assume that several of those voices in the exit poles belonged to “Christians.” Manning says this as it relates to the ideas of consumerism, possessiveness and financial security:
              Let us be bold enough to ask ourselves, as Christians, whether the church of the Lord Jesus in the United States has anything to say to our nation about its ideologies of materialism, possessiveness, and the worship of financial security. Are we courageous enough to be a sign of contradiction to consumerism through our living faith in Jesus Christ? Are we committed enough to his gospel to become countercurrent to the drift? Or have we so accommodated the faith of our fathers to consumption that the question of simplicity of life, sharing of resources, and radical dependence on God’s providence no longer seem relevant? How do we build the Kingdom of God on earth if what we incarnate in our lives is the dogma of our culture rather than the revelation of Jesus? Where is the signature of Jesus?
              He goes on to say in the same chapter: Simplicity, purity, and obedience to the Word will leave us weak and powerless in the world’s eyes because we no longer can call upon our possessions and privileged positions as security. We will be subject to derision and outrage because authentic discipleship is a life of sublime madness. Injury and insult are promised to those who labor for the sake of righteousness. Paul’s word to the Galatians is utter folly to our American culture: “God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world” (Galatians 6:14 KJV).

I offer those words to you not as an indictment on others, but as an indictment on myself. I too often view my faith and call to discipleship in relation to the world in which we live. I am “of the world” more often than I care to admit. I don’t say this to argue there is something wrong with possessions but more to remind myself, and perhaps others, that the things of this world, including IRAs, stocks, and bonds, won’t be worth anything when it is all said and done. I daresay that Christians, just like the rest of the world, have become some enamored with the things we can clutch in our hands that we’ve forgotten about the nail scarred hands of our Savior, the One who claims that He’ll never leave us or forsake us, even in the midst of fiscal uncertainty.

If we can somehow find our way back to dependence on Him instead of our own abilities, perhaps we can then begin to show the world what truly being “in Christ” is all about. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, if we seek to do that, the world will hate us. Any thoughts?

One final note: I received a comment on my last post from someone who apparently belongs to the list of names in my office that God blessed me with the chance to share Christ with. That person has grown disenchanted with the idea of Jesus and has opted for a belief system that is more “logical.” I didn’t get his or her name, but if you pray, please be praying for that individual. I sent them an e-mail and would love the chance to talk some more. If they respond, and are okay with me keeping you updated, I will let you know how our written conversations go. God bless.