Strategic Placement

I am sitting in an illegally-constructed makeshift apartment in someone’s backyard, a little south of Fresno, CA.  A friend of mine lives here along with several immigrant farmworkers.  He is a pastor now, but I met him almost fifteen years ago, on my first mission trip.  I was fifteen and he was the translator for us at an orphanage in Tijuana, Mexico.  We have stayed in touch (a bit loosely) ever since.  He has not always lived in these apartments, and tonight he shared with us how God has brought him here.

(Work on the orphanage wall on Grady's first mission trip - Grady second from right)

A few years ago he was slated to lead another mission trip to Mexico, but a few things happened where they were going and the leaders did not feel comfortable taking a bunch of high school kids there.  They decided this after the kids had already gotten to California, so he had to find something to do with them.  He learned of some big needs in the community where he now lives, so he brought his kids there, and throughout the week several people accepted Christ.

There was not a Spanish church close enough for the new Christians to plug into though, so he brought the need to his sending church, and they said: “Well, why don’t you go start one?”

So he did and moved in with the people he is serving.  And he told us:  “I love every minute of it!  God has put me in the most strategic place, where I can do ministry just poking my head out the door.  He sent Jesus to the most strategic place as well.  If it would have reached more people, he could have sent him to a palace, but he knew it would be more strategic to send him to a manger in Bethlehem.”

I love his perspective, and it is awe-inspiring to see how God works and places us strategically where he can use us most.  Please join us in praying that God would use all of us strategically, no matter the location.

How Diego wrote his name.

While finishing up our first MAF newsletter in Nampa, Idaho, Holly and I decided we wanted a personalized signature block.  Diego was just getting interested in writing his letters, so I decided it was time to teach him to write his name.  Holly was not so sure . . .

My plan was to help Diego write his name, than add ours before it, scan the paper, and use it on the letter.  I confidently sat down with Diego, a marker, and a sheet of paper.  Diego was excited and I showed him how to write a D.  He drew the line, then started drawing the semi-circle, ending up almost an inch lower than the bottom of his line.  I encouraged him to connect the points, which made our line somewhat less linear, but you still got the idea, so we moved on.

Next, the I.  In retrospect maybe I should have taught the simple line I without the top and bottom lines.   Personally I've always preferred the more complex version though, so we set to work.  Diego’s bottom line was fine, but the top line was more of a squiggle, and definitely not on the top.  It probably still would have gotten the job done.  But Diego, a perfectionist who could tell it did not look like my example, proceeded to dramatically scribble out everything he had written so far . . . (Holly might have been concealing a little laughter).

We took a break, then tried again with a few skittles as motivation.  We tried lower case letters to see if they would go any better.  After a few repeats of the above, we got the below, which seemed like the best we were going to do, and the quantity of skittles that would have been required for more attempts risked diabetes.

The next day Holly and I were still working in the classroom when it was time for Diego’s babysitter to go home.  We were not quite ready to pack up yet, so I brought Diego over and tried to keep him entertained.  Diego saw the whiteboard and markers and suddenly a new idea was sparked.  I pulled a table to the bottom of the board so Diego would have a good platform to work from, and with the new medium he was quite excited to try again.

It turned out drawing letters a foot and a half tall is a lot easier than drawing letters two inches tall on a paper.  Also at that scale following Daddy’s finger worked a lot better.

Besides that, when Diego messed up a letter and got frustrated, we had the eraser (which he thought was fun in and of itself).

In fact it was so fun that when he finished writing his name he decided it should have more colors.  So in a highly risky maneuver he erased the I and the O and re-colored them.

(We took the picture above as insurance).   Once finished to his satisfaction, he decided to fly.

We sure had fun with it, and Diego has done quite well recognizing the letters in his name ever since.

Our first post will be up tomorrow, April 17th.  (Sorry, there was a Texas Rangers game tonight...)