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| I had a random meeting yesterday in Wal-mart. By random, I mean that it was unplanned.
This meeting gave me so much encouragement, and from someone who I look up to so very much.
All of this adds up to make me think that the meeting was planned, just not by me. And that means more to me than the meeting itself.
"Where was I when the world was made? Where was I?...You knew my name when the world was made."
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| For anyone who is interested, I have started a series on one of my other blogs about my times with CTI. I posted the first entry here a few days ago, but I am going to post the rest on the other blog. Feel free to check it out if you have time.
Here's the address:
www.paul-vasilko.blogspot.com
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| Given my current situation (i.e., recovering from two years of
full-time ministry with CTI Music Ministries) I have been trying to
intentionally reflect on the things that happened in those two years. I
am hoping that a part of this process will include me recognizing the
changes that the Lord made in me through these two years and, in that
same vein, striving to allow those changes to become permanent.
So
what does this mean to you, my faithful readers? I'm hoping that in the
next weeks and months I will be posting a series of anecdotes and
stories about my time with CTI. They may be funny, emotional, or just
plain silly, but they will be real and they are a very real part of me
now.
So here's the first installment:
Setting: Singapore, August 2006, more specifically a school
Characters: The members of my team, the YFC (Youth for Christ) staff, and about 1,000 students.
When
my team had arrived in Singapore, we were equipped with 16 or 17 songs,
two dramas, and a whole bunch of desire. We were there to share the
Gospel with anyone who would listen and we felt that we were very well
prepared for the task.
The Singapore YFC staff felt differently.
Allow
me to qualify that last statement. Singapore Youth for Christ is one of
the most effective and in-touch youth ministries I have ever seen, and
they knew that what were equipped with (i.e., our songs and dramas,
even our mindset) would not be as effective as some suggestions that
they had. So we ceded to their authority and did not regret it for a
minute.
Our first priority was to change our song repertoire,
which we diligently set out to do. Once we had some new songs under our
belt we moved onto the new skit that had been developed just for us by
some members of the YFC staff. [The YFC had not only written a
wonderful script and developed a soundtrack for us, but they had also
spent a lot of resources on putting together some pretty extensive
costumes for us.] It is important to note that our initial opinion of
the skit (mainly because it involved us making complete fools of
ourselves) was much less than our final opinion, the change in opinion
was due to the raging success we had with the skit in our perfomances.
My
role in the skit was fairly simple. I was to play fire, and when moment
was right, I was to destroy the village at the command of the villain
who was taking revenge for his unrequited love. Nothing to it.
The
climax of the skit involved me chasing the villain of the skit off
stage, illustrating the concept that revenge can get out of hand and
come back to burn (quite literally in this case) us if we let it. After
we did this scene a few times, we started spicing things up a little.
We would involve spins and turns and jumps, just to make things
slightly more interesting. It usually got quite the reaction from the
crowd.
It was a performance like any other. We were playing at
a school and there were about 1,000 students in the auditorium that
afternoon. We had wowed the crowd with our music, we were going to show
them the drama, and then hit them with the meat of our message: the
Gospel of Jesus Christ. Sounds like a great plan huh? Then it
happened...
Ernest (the villain) started the chase scene as per
usual, running down the steps toward the front row of the students,
preparing to run out the side door of the auditorium. That day, though,
he decided to stop short, cut, and completely change direction. It was
a cut that any NFL running back would have been proud of, it would have
fooled even the most seasoned defenders...and it definitely fooled me.
Everything
happened so quickly, I am not sure exactly what transpired. All I know
is that I tried to emulate the cut Ernest had so deftly made and the
ground beneath me started to shift. I looked down to realize my worst
nightmare had come true. I had chosen shoddy footing for my poor
attempt at directional change: a loose square of carpet. Soon I was
tumbling downward in a flurry of red and orange cloth (important
insertion: my costume was composed of large toga-like pieces of red and
orange polyester...it was incredibly flattering). I quickly tried to
recover, but my effort was in vain. In fact it made the situation
worse, as my feet got tangled in my costume when I tried to stand back
up. I crawled for a few feet, dejected and not even wanting to stand
back up to make my exit, but I knew that the quicker I got off stage,
the sooner the humiliation would be over.
The humiliation was
only beginning, though. Once I reached the wings of the stage, I
quickly ripped my mask (that's right, there was a super-heroesque
blindfold with eye holes poked in it, I looked like an orange Zorro)
off and tried to catch my breath. It was then that a terrifying
revelation hit me: I had to go back out there. I was asked earlier that
day by the YFC staff to be the one to share the Gospel with the
students at the school. I finished extracting myself from my costume,
held my chin up high, took the microphone in hand, cleared my throat
and started with this statement: "I meant to do that." The crowd
responded by erupting in a cacophony of laughter (maybe even louder
than the one following my fall). Though this did a lot to soften the
blow to my ego, it did nothing for what I was about to say. The
audience was unrecoverable. I can only hope that the Holy Spirit
reached those it was trying to that day despite my best efforts at
getting in the way.
The only redeeming thing about this whole
thing is that most of my team did not actually see me fall, they only
heard the laughter. This did not stop them from mercilessly ribbing me
for the rest of our trip. Oh well, having the story to tell is worth
any amount of ribbing that I had to endure. | | |
| Back to Work...This week I finally got everything in order so that I could get back into a routine of substitute teaching. I had some troubles renewing my certificate, but that all got straightened out. So I spent the majority of this week back at work. I worked with kids who were having trouble reading, kids who had been suspended from "normal" school, and a great group of 6th graders.
My trepidations about "just working" were somewhat allayed now that I am back in the swing of it. I am thanking God for the opportunities to invest in the lives of some children who might not otherwise be invested in. And, I must admit, the thought of drawing a somewhat regular paycheck is mildly enticing. However, my fear still exists that I will become "settled" into a lifestyle that does not involve me doing something great for the Lord. I emailed a spiritual mentor of mine about that and this is what he wrote:
"...don't worry about "getting settled." It never happens. And don't assume that God always wants you moving."
I really needed to hear that right now.
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