15. September 2009 by Pastor Pamela.

Recently I was sitting on Pr. Pam’s desk in her home office, keeping her some company while she was working on her sermon and checking e-mails. After a while she got a phone call and I couldn’t help but listening in on the conversation. I forgot what most parts of the conversation were about (which is good in terms of confidentiality anyway). But the story the person on the other end was telling her stuck with me, and I want to share it with you:

Once a man was walking along a beach. The sun was shining and it was a beautiful day. Off in the distance he could see a little girl going back and forth between the surf’s edge and the beach. Back and forth the little girl went. As the man approached he could see that there were hundreds of starfish stranded on the sand as the result of the natural action of the tide.

The man was stuck by the apparent futility of the task. There were far too many starfish. Many of them were sure to perish. As he approached the girl continued the task of picking up starfish one by one and throwing them into the surf.

As he came up to the girl he said, “You must be crazy. There are thousands of miles of beach covered with starfish. What difference can it possibly make?” The girl looked at the man. She then stooped down, picked up one more starfish and threw it back into the ocean. Then she turned back to the man and said, “It sure made a difference to that one!”

We can make a difference too – one at a time!

Yours Pelle

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15. September 2009 by Pastor Pamela.

REGULAR events at South Lyon Power & Light:

Sundays:          

8:15 AM                        Worship team rehearsal

9:10 AM                        Worship

Wednesdays:

10:00 – 11:00 AM        jobseekers breakfast

(hosted by South Lyon Power & Light in September, St. Joseph Catholic Church in October)

Women’s bible study is starting soon!

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15. September 2009 by Pastor Pamela.

In case you didn’t get to hear the sermon, here is the God Moment:

South Lyon Power & Light was doing a car wash in South Lyon – not as a fundraiser but in order to show some kindness to the people in this community. We were washing their cars for free, and even handed a dollar to the people who came and had their cars washed. Some stopped and said they didn’t have the time to have their cars washed but wanted to support us, thinking we were doing a fundraiser. They were astounded when we said: “Well, then take at least the dollar if you can’t stay to have your car washed.” Most of them were speechless because they wanted to pay US and didn’t expect that we would do something for THEM.

People’s responses were:

-         Are you serious?

-         Why would you do that?

-         Or they were just shaking their heads, saying nothing.

Others were really hard to convince that we wouldn’t take any money. In one case we were only partly successful. One gentleman had given one of the kids from our mission team a few dollars to pay for the car wash, and he insisted that we would take the money. But we didn’t. We could at least persuade him to take his money back, although he wouldn’t accept the dollar from us.

To summarize our experience: The expression on people’s faces was priceless as one mission team member put it.

But there is an aftermath to this story.

We managed to wash 16 cars that day, which was okay, although we were hoping for more. We had 50 dollars in one dollar bills available. Since we didn’t get the chance to give all of the 50 dollars away there was money left.

At 2:00 PM we wrapped everything up and most of us headed home.

I head a meeting scheduled at 3:00PM at SLPL. While waiting for the family I was going to meet with I was pondering about the money we had left. It just didn’t seem right to save it for another occasion because if had washed 50 cars it would have been gone any way. The fact that I was pretty hungry at that point and ready to order a pizza at the Pizza Service next door gave me the idea. But first I had to make it through that meeting on an empty stomach.

After the meeting I went over to the pizza place, and ordered my pizza. The young man behind the counter asked if this was all, or if there was anything else he could do for me. I said: “Actually, yes. There is something you can do for me.” I gave him 10 dollar bills and asked him to take $10 off the next customers’ bill. I left one of our connect cards with him as well in case that person wanted to know where this came from. My pizza was supposed to be ready in about 10 minutes.

I sat on the stairs in front of our storefront, waiting and thinking. Had I done the right thing? What if the Pro Pizza employee kept the money for himself? And the I thought: Well, I guess I have to trust God on that. God will make sure that the money goes, where it is supposed to.

And it worked exactly the way I had planned it. The next customer got $10 off their bill. Another young man was about to walk into the pizza place, and I still had money left. So I gave him 10 dollars as well for his meal. I still had money left, and walked over to the party store and tried the same thing. THAT did not work so well – at least not in the beginning. The employee there did keep the money for himself. But my trust in God paid off. When I walked into the parking lot to put some things in my car, a pickup truck stopped next to me, with a whole family in it – Mom, Dad, and two children. The dad told me that he had overheard my conversation with the party store employee, and wanted to let me know that things didn’t go the way I intended them to. He by the way would have been the customer to get $10 off his bill, which didn’t happen. I told him to wait a minute and walked into the party store. I confronted the employee with what had  happened, and got my money back. I had to work hard in order to convince that family in the pickup to take the money. They told me that they don’t need it and that I should give it to someone more needy. But finally I was successful.

By that time my pizza was ready. The young man from next door brought it over to me, and I tipped him very well because I still had money to give away. Why shouldn’t he be one of the people we were sharing God’s love with. We now have exactly one dollar left from our last outreach event.

Then I took my small BBQ-Fajita-Chicken pizza, locked the door, got in my car and drove away. While driving out of South Lyon I was thinking about the experiences of that day. I  could already see the CVS pharmacy at the corner of Pontiac Trail and Silver Lake Road, when it hit me: I hadn’t paid my pizza!

So I turned and went all the way back to the pizza place, walked in, credit card in my hand and said: “I forgot to pay my pizza”. The young man behind the counter said: “Yes you did.” And I said: “And you didn’t remind me.” And he said: “No, I didn’t.”

“But I want to pay for my pizza.”

“I won’t let you.”

“Why is that?”

“Because you have done so much for others today and now it’s your turn.”

I responded: “But the whole point is to do something for others unconditionally, without asking anything in return. We don’t want to take anything today, we want to just give.”

And he said: “I know. But the pizza isn’t for your church. It’s for you.”

And then he turned around and walked into the back of the store taking care of his pizza oven, leaving me there with my credit card in my hand and a pretty dumbstruck expression on my face.

Finally it dawned on me that this whole servant evangelism concept had backfired on me, that this was God’s precise timing, and that I had, at that moment, become a “victim” of God’s unconditional love. And I must admit: I have never had a BBQ-Fajita-Chicken pizza that tasted sooooo good!

God gives love and grace freely to anybody at any time, no strings attached. Go and do likewise!

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