The Sunday After

It is Sunday late afternoon.  I just got back from the gym.  I needed the workout after a long day/week/month/year…  The school year is over except for the tying up of loose ends.  The graduates are having a graduation party at the school pool.  It seems to be well attended.  I ended running about 3 ½ miles on the treadmill followed by some crunches before I called it a day.  Not bad, considering I had not been to the gym for a few days/weeks.

Graduation weekend was a very positive experience.  All four graduation speakers, all teachers—past and present, were very positive and poignant.  The students responded well to all of them and their messages were appropriate and engaging.  The music was well put together.  The décor was classy.  The graduates looked delighted to have reached the end of their high-school experience.  There were no visible and enduring signs of the rough times they went through this school year.  It was a delightful weekend.  They made us proud.

The search for leadership for the elementary openings across the conference is taking shape.  It appears there will only be one opening not filled in time for Campmeeting.  Speaking of which, there are still some loose ends to tidy up for campmeeting, and summer camp participation, and the NAD Teachers’ Convention, and, and, and….  The summer will see very little relief from the “to do” list that has been weighing on me for some time.

Well anyway, this is long weekend.  I am not sure if I am happy or disappointed in such a development.  It’s like I need more time, not less.  And this week I will have one less work day—I will be working, but few people will be working in their offices on Monday.  Oh, well.  At least there will not be wholesale changes at TAA this summer.  It will be a time for reassessment and readjustment.  Pray hard. 

Oh, by the way, the fundraising for the 2012 Youth Campmeeting Service Project has raised $4,500 out of the $8,000 dollars needed.  That is a blessing.  On the other hand I have not raised a penny towards the MVCS fund.  I must believe God will still provide.  Plus Tax Credit dollars need to begin flowing….  Pray hard! 

The Final School Week Begins

So far my Youth Project Initiative has garnished $2,200.  I have $6,800 to go.  We’ll see.  I am not worried about that specific endeavor.

Penny and I had a great day at Camelback Church this past Sabbath.  I truly enjoyed preaching.  Penny enjoyed the sermon—at least that is what she told me.  I even sang at the close of my sermon, something I had not done since I arrived in Arizona.  I began singing at the end of my sermons during my ministry at the Visalia SDA Church in Central California back in the 80’s.  Music has always been a part of my life.  During my time at the Visalia I felt limiting my preaching to oratory was narrowing the scope of the experience.  I concluded that people who might not “get it” through the spoken word might be able to connect through music—and so it began.  I always found a song that related to the message and concluded my message with a song and a prayer.  It was never an addition, but an integral part of the sermon.

For some reason I lost sight of that part of my preaching when I came to Arizona, perhaps because I did not want my singing to be perceived as a performance.  It was never about that, rather an extension of the message to open the door for a response.  A couple weeks ago I was speaking for the La Sierra Academy Alumni weekend (I am not an alumni of LSA…go figure) and decided to sing at the close of my brief message.  I sang a song entitled “Your Grace Still Amazes Me.”  The response was positive, especially from those who remember my ministry at the Visalia and La Sierra University churches.  It was, however, one of my son’s comments after the service that left the deepest impression on me.  He simply said, “Dad, you should sing at the end of every sermon like you used to do.”  Then he chuckled and added, “You’ll become known as the singing superintendent….” 

It is such a massive responsibility to stand before a congregation and share a thought from God.  I don’t know how God is determined to work through feeble and fickle humans to convey His Word, but he does.  By the same token I don’t know how anyone could ever approach this responsibility with anything less than total awe and humility.  I still get antsy and jittery after over 50 years of preaching.  Every sermon is a miracle!

But alas, the new week begins!  Personnel teleconferences and school board meetings await me this week.  An accreditation visit in Tucson, leading to graduation weekend at TAA are all on the immediate horizon.  Final and summative evaluations are due this week for all teachers not on regular status.  By the end of this week I hope and pray we will have filled all the opening in the elementary system.  There are still some personnel role adjustments needed in the high schools, but that item is still in the serious prayer stage.  All in all it will not be a heavy travel week, and for that I am very thankful.

There will always be threatening clouds on the horizon, but I cannot worry about such things.  I only ask for enough grace for today.  (230.1)

Lessons Learned

I am getting ready for my appointment at the Camelback SDA Church in Phoenix, Arizona.  I will be making a presentation and preaching for the morning service.  My sermon title is, “No Mas!”  This week has been a sobering week on many levels.  I have seen some serious miracles taking place to open doors that appear to provide for needs in specific schools.  One week ago we were facing daunting personnel challenges in pockets of this conference.  This week they seem to be clearing up.  God is good.

On the other hand I have also seen how situations can spiral out of control when they do have divine approval.  It is easy to make choices that seem right but that can quickly turn if they have not been prayerful decisions.  These are lessons learned in the school of hard knocks.  I doubt God would have designed it that way—those are situations of our own devising.  But the enemy never sleeps.  Thank fully God never sleeps either!

I woke up this morning and realized that I have thousands of dollars to raise in the next few weeks.  I am not a fund-raiser by any means, but I will have to step outside my comfort zone and do the ask.  “Ask and it shall be given,” are words of Jesus.  Our schools need money.  I will become a Tax Credit proponent any chance I get.  There are resources available and we fail to take advantage of the opportunity.  I will be making a short presentation on the concept to the Camelback Church this morning (by pastor’s request).

The second focus of my fund-raising efforts is a Youth Extreme Makeover Campmeeting project in Prescott.  For some odd reason I volunteered to find the money ($8000) for this annual community service project for young people from across the state who come to the Camp Yavapines Campmeeting.  They choose a project in partnership with the city and then tackle it during the five days of campmeeting in early June…early June!  Well, anyway I am putting out an e-mail today.  If you want to donate to this worthy project, send your tax-deductible donation to:  Arizona Conference of Seventh-day Adventists (c/o Ruben Escalante), P. O. Box 12340, Scottsdale, AZ 85267-2340.  In your memo, note Youth Yavapines Service Project.  Thank you beforehand for your generosity.

Well, I gotta run!  Have a great Sabbath. (231.1)

The Clock Keeps Ticking

Today I am blogging.  It has been seven days since my last blog.  That was meant to sound like a confession.  The pace this time of year is quite frenetic.  There is a litany of items that cry out for attention—at the same time.  But we toil on.

I am blogging before the beginning of the work day.  My evenings are consumed with other work.  Let’s see…the past few days have been sprinkled with an array of activities ranging from a school board meeting in Apache Junction to a Hispanic Pastors’ Meeting at the conference office.  The pastors’ meeting was significant since we officially launched our new Spanish-language family-focused magazine—Viva Hoy.  It is going to print in the next few days and then samples will be sent all across the nation.  I’m pretty excited.

The meeting in Apache Junction was encouraging.  Enrollment at the Adobe school which is sponsored by the local Apache Junction Church is looking very positive for the coming next year.  Budget will still be tight, but the commitment level of the church seems rock-solid.

Yesterday took me to downtown Phoenix to do some filming for a Couples’ Retreat at the Westin over Labor Day Weekend.  That was fun. Later on I conducted a teleconference with Saguaro Hills School administration to take one final look at next year’s staffing.  A School Board at the Maricopa Village School in Laveen concluded the work day.  It was be a busy day.

Today will consist of a Curriculum Review Committee with our two high schools followed by a very important State Tax Organization (STO) meeting with representatives from the state.  It is a critical meeting in our push to ensure the continued viability of the Arizona Adventist Scholarships, Inc., the parent Tax Scholarship Organization for our school system’s tax credit program.  We hope to have many of the specific policies that impact our organization clarified in order to make the process of helping our students more streamlined and more beneficial to the students.

My work day will end at a Desert Valley school board meeting in Tucson.  This is one of three conference elementary schools that are going through critical personnel transitions.  The calendar keeps moving and the pool is not deep, but I am still confident that God will make clear the right fit from the pool we have that the choice will become clear.   In the end I trust the program will be strengthened. (231.2)

LSU Constituency Brief Debrief

              Today is Mother’s Day in Mexico.  I called my mom, who was staying at her “adoptive” daughter’s house.  She went there last night to go to Prayer meeting in Deer Valley.  I was in California at the constituency meeting for La Sierra University.  It was a long day.

               The trip began with a two hour delay in Phoenix.  It was probably related to a bomb scare at Sky Harbor Airport in Phoenix.  One incoming and one outgoing aircraft had bomb scares on Wednesday evening (both false).  In any case it made a one hour trip to California two hours longer than expected.  Ironically, the trip was extended almost three hours on the return flight from California due to a weather-related three hour delay in Ontario.  Apparently the news indicated there was severely inclement weather in the greater Phoenix area.  My calls to Arizona only drew surprise. The people I spoke to claimed there was no such weather crisis in their neighborhood.  Go figure Arizona’s compartmentalized weather patterns!

               The meetings went well.  Most of the day was swallowed up with sundry departmental reports.  These were interesting, although the report related to the process of addressing the creation-evolution discussion drew the highest level of interest.  LSU has taken some specific steps to address the concerns of the constituency.  One point that was subtly introduced was that there was no corresponding data available from other Adventist universities similar to the data collected through student and faculty surveys regarding student perceptions regarding the spiritual climate of the school and the impact of the school on the spiritual maturity of the student.  It gave the gathering something to consider.

             
              Constitution and By-laws discussion led to some spirited discussion about transparency and “checks and balances” between administration and constituency.  It was fruitful to the degree that it informed the committee of the concerns of the membership represented by those gathered.  I was never overtly contentious, but the discussion at times spiraled to the degree that I wondered how the meeting would be brought back to order—the net result was a meeting that spilled over the allotted time and pressed us to arrive at the airport in time to wait three hours for our flight! (235)