STILL SURPRISED!
When was the last time you were surprised by God? Let me share with you what happened at the opening of our recent Vacation Bible School (VBS).
This year was the first time Keele Street Christian Church has had a VBS in several years. This was also my first time getting a VBS together since coming to Keele Street last year. In Letete, my previous church, VBS was a very successful, well-oiled machine in its twenty-fifth year of consecutive ministry. It is well-known in all the area and the kids just show up.
In Toronto, things are a bit different. First off, the words, "Vacation Bible School" either hold no meaning, or are downright scary! We spent some time advertising in the local newspaper and got a promotional sign placed at the front of our church building. We called our campaign, "Summer Begins at Keele." The day before VBS started we held a community picnic in the park just behind the church and gave out free hot dogs and drinks. We had some games and a clown, balloon animals, a piñata; you know the whole nine yards. We met several neighborhood kids and their parents during the picnic and I was really hoping that we would get some of the kids in for our VBS opening the next night.
Finally, after a lot of planning, some unexpected hurtles and few assorted crisis's, VBS at Keele was about to start its maiden voyage. The voyage almost ground to a halt when, for some reason we couldn't get our LCD projector to work and thus we had no words of any of our songs. Next, we couldn't find the key to the safe that contains all our mikes, so we started a scavenger hunt for it. It seemed that if anything could go wrong, it did. It was obvious to me that we were in the midst of a battle. I took the opposition as a sign of good things to come. I prayed and adapted. Soon we had most things in order. We found the key and the problem with the projector was just a loose cover. 6:30 pm came and we were ready to start VBS. The only problem was that, even after all of our efforts and prayers, no one from the community had come. The only children we had were from our own church. I was disappointed and wondering what had happened. What went wrong? What could we do to somehow rescue the event? Just as I was pondering such thoughts, the icing on our VBS cake came in the form of a fire alarm.
I was downstairs at the time, so I quickly checked all the rooms to make sure there wasn't anyone down there. A couple of our men did the same in the other areas of the building. After checking to make sure there was no fire, we opened the panel and tried to silence the alarm, but for some reason, it wouldn't be silenced. So, we decided to just joined everyone else who was standing on the sidewalk outside the church and swap the noise of the fire alarm for the new noise of sirens coming. In very short order, we had three fire trucks and a mess of firemen doing what firemen do. Soon a crowd was gathered, wanting to see what was going on.
Well, to make a long story short, the fire chief couldn't find anything wrong. It seems that our fire panel had malfunctioned. None of the pull stations were activated, and there was no sign of smoke or any other problems. After a few minutes, the fire trucks left and we were free to go back into the building. But - here is the surprise - because the fire alarm went off and the fire trucks came, we were able to invite all the kids who came to investigate the commotion. Most of them had met us in the park the day before so we already had a connection with them and they came. Five children from the community came that night, and they had a great time! As a result, they brought more of their friends the next night. All in all, we had eleven new children from the community come to our VBS throughout the week. Granted, eleven kids isn't a startling number, still it is a foundation that we can build on in the future. But, the point I have been pondering since then is this, if the fire alarm hadn't gone off when it went off, we wouldn't have had anyone from the community come to our VBS!
The next day I called the fire alarm company and they came to fix the malfunction. As it turns out - surprise, surprise - there was nothing wrong with the panel, or anything else for that matter. They really couldn't explain why the alarm went off! They reset the panel, and it's worked fine ever since.
Here's the point, God answered our prayers and blessed our efforts by calling in the fire department. Never in a million years would I have figured that He was going to use fire trucks, noise and commotion to answer our prayers, but hey, if you are going to attract kids, what better way is there? Fire trucks are kid magnets, right?
The Lord never ceases to amaze me. He always knows exactly what to do and His timing is always perfect. Often, I don't feel like His timing is perfect, while I am waiting. Likewise, sometimes He doesn't do what I think He should do, but He seems to always come up with a better plan. I think that's in His job description, don't you?
Keep your eyes open and expect God to amaze you. He will, when you least expect it!
If you have any thoughts or comments, please click on my name at the bottom of this page and I promise to write back to you.
