Here Am I, Send Me

Don't you love when circumstances in life converge in a serendipitous way that makes you sit back and say, "Okay, now that's a God thing"? This weekend presented us with just such a scenario, and I HAVE to tell you about it!

The long-awaited Leadership Training for Christ extravaganza took place this past Friday and Saturday and what an exhibition it was! Thousands of kids from all over the place converged on the Hyatt Regency in downtown Dallas to showcase their skills in Chorus, Drama, Song Leading, Art, Puppets, Scrapbooking, Bible Reading, Memorization, Bible Quiz/Bible Bowl . . . and I'm pretty sure that's just the tip of the iceberg. As I have mentioned several times, we had a number of kids from WW who were entered in multiple events, and Darcy and Tyler participated in Puppets, Chorus and Video Bible Drama. The theme this year was "Here Am I, Send Me." Remember that, 'cause it's going to be important later.

Stop me if you've heard this already but the Video Bible Drama is an event that is "pre-recorded," if you will. In other words, the kids do not perform their Video Bible Drama at LTC. That's the whole point of the "video" aspect--they videotape their performance and send it in to be judged. So the only events Tyler and Darcy took part in Saturday were Chorus at 9:50 a.m. and Puppets at 12:50 p.m.

Randy and I went back and forth, back and forth about whether or not the whole family was going to attend LTC; all week the plan had been to make it a family outing, but when the rubber met the road and I realized #1 how early Tyler and Darcy had to be in downtown Dallas (at least one hour prior to the scheduled performance time) and #2 how long it was going to take us to get there, I decided to let the other three sleep in! So T, D & I headed out at about 7:45 a.m. (give or take), and if I were completely honest I would have to say I was not entirely calm. On the inside, that is. Outside, cool as a cucumber, baby. But something about the words "Take exit 45A on the left to merge onto Commerce St. toward Downtown" and "Slight right at Reunion Blvd. W" just caused me to feel light-headed. Was I really going to try to navigate my way into Downtown Dallas all by my lonesome? It's folly, I tell you!

Looking back, I am amazed at how flawlessly I got us into AND out of not just downtown Dallas, but the whole Reunion Arena/Hyatt Regency melee. You would have thought I worked downtown, as effortlessly as I made my way around. Not that I made all the right choices on purpose--the ease with which we made it to our intended destination was just the first of the many "God things" this weekend!

We found a parking space relatively close to the hotel and made our way in, where we were greeted by the sight of hundreds of people milling around wearing LTC T-shirts. "Huh, looks like we're in the right place, kids." And we hadn't gone 500 feet when we spotted a little cafe outside a gift shop, and what do you know?? It's a consortium of Woodland West-ers! What are the odds?! (God Thing #2.) The kids immediately buddied up with their friends and I took a seat at one of the tables after Daniel graciously offered it, and I chatted with the folks seated there. Several of us worked on Tom's Sudoku puzzle (Difficulty Rating: Six Stars--ooooohhhh!) and got nowhere. And before you know it, it was time to sing!

(Let me insert here my most abject apology for having not even ONE photograph to offer up as proof that my kids actually did what I say they did. Leave me alone--I had enough on my mind to have to remember the dad-blame camera too!)

I honestly don't know how many Choruses were entered in the competition, and I don't know how many Gold, Silver and Bronze medals are awarded. I haven't been involved in LTC long enough to have that kind of information. What I do know is that the rules state that you must compete in the bracket which is appropriate to the OLDEST child in the group. So in the case of our chorus, even though Darcy and Grace were the youngest kids as 4th graders, they competed in the 9th-12th grade bracket because we had two 11th graders in our group. And they were great, singing three songs including one called "Here Am I" that Jack, the coordinator, wrote especially for LTC this year. One of the teens had a little wind taken out of her sails when she heard the chorus that performed immediately after ours, and we had to point out to her that A) the other chorus had fully TWICE as many members as ours, and B) they were easily all teenagers, whereas our chorus had at least six kids under the age of 12.

After a lengthy break during which we availed ourselves of the hotel restaurant's breakfast buffet, it was time for the Puppets event, and if I do say so myself, our kids ROCKED! Seriously, they were AWESOME! I think Coach Jan had some trepidation (I know I did!) about whether or not our kids would speak slowly enough, loudly enough, and would hold up their puppets high enough. Um, yes, yes, and yes! I guess their little "dress rehearsal" at LTC Night a couple of Wednesdays ago helped to work out any last-minute kinks because there were none on Saturday! It was really cool to watch and see them all do so well. (And since this is my blog, I can brag and say that the Coordinator told Darcy privately that she was the best! She just beamed.)

The rest of my Saturday passed in a blur and I will confess that by the time I laid my head on my pillow that night, I was seriously spent. Too much to do and not enough time to do it, yada yada yada, you know the drill. And I wanted to be more excited about the coming day because, well, it's Easter and all, and we had 49 AIMers coming to Woodland West to help us kick off Missions Week, plus the scheduled LTC Awards/Sandwich Supper in the evening.

I went to sleep with a splitting headache and woke up with--SURPRISE!--a splitting headache. Naturally, since I felt so lousy, I refused to take any medication for it. But now, more than 16 hours since my feet first touched the floor this morning, there is no sign of the headache that threatened to ruin my day. This was one of the best days in recent memory!

The entire worship service this morning was one of the most spiritually uplifting I've ever experienced, from beginning to end. Randy's record improved to 3-for-3 (or is it 4-for-4?) in his ability to make me cry (in a good way!), and the singing--oh, the singing!! And then the AIM students with their flag presentation, the short message that the director delivered, the brief video that we got to view, shot by the director's son as he labors in the mission field in Africa--I just drank it all in. When services were over the congregation was urged to meet all of the AIMers personally and while I am sad to say that I did not meet all 49 of them, I did my level best. But come on--I talk too much and too long to squeeze that many kids in!

These kids are, in a word, amazing. No, that doesn't do them justice. They are awe-inspiring. In our society today that has sometimes been labeled the "Me Generation," it is inspiring to talk to so many kids and to hear their stories about the personal choices and sacrifices they made to enter the AIM program. And what a stunningly warm, open, friendly group of kids! I wanted to bring them all home with me! I spent a ton of time talking to the likes of Aaron and Brian, who are second-generation AIMers (and now that I think about it, I guess that's not the proper term because it wasn't their parents, but rather siblings, who were in AIM before them); to Chutney and Diego, whose parents aren't Christians but who support their children's decisions to serve in a mission field; to Toby, who was in a serious crisis of faith when he made the decision to commit to AIM and today feels the sufficiency of God's grace to get him through each day; to Bretton, who is determined that she is going to minister to the lost in Mexico one way or another; to Sasha, who along with Elizabeth, the daughter of our Missions Minister, will be going to Guadalajara (I think) and who was celebrating her birthday today (I know!); to Rudy, Jess, Nisa, Dana, Jessica, Brent (who is now an AIM Assistant Director), all young people whose sole focus at this moment can be summed up in five frightening, exhilarating words: "Here Am I, Send Me." (So totally God Thing #3.)

I didn't intend for this post to have gotten so long but I hope you've stuck with me because I'm not done yet! We assembled this evening for the LTC Awards ceremony, and since we had the AIMers with us Jack decided to give them a little "post-view" of what they missed. The Chorus sang one song ("Here Am I") and then the puppet crew performed their skit. The AIMers, I was pleased to note, seemed thoroughly entertained by the skit and the performers. (I know the kids were tickled by all the laughter that they could hear.) And when it came time to announce the awards, the results were:

Video Bible Drama - Silver Medal
Chorus - GOLD Medal
Puppets - GOLD Medal

As for our other kids and their events, there was a whole slew of Gold and Silver medals in every event. Well done, kids! They each received a T-shirt and a plaque with a hanger at the bottom which holds the little gold and silver labels (engraved with the events in which they participated). Tyler came to me after we had concluded to show me his plaque and he crowed, "I don't care what Dad says, we're drilling a hole in the wall and hanging this baby up!" Well said, my son.