The Plan is Presented Plus...

Today was a wonderful day.  The weather was pleasant.  The sun was shining.  And a minister’s meeting was taking place at the Arizona Conference Office.  About 12:15 p.m., right before the contingent of pastors was dismissed for a delicious lunch prepared for them, I was given the floor.  The mission was to make the presentation on a three year strategic plan for Adventist Education in Arizona in those fifteen minutes, and do it in such a way that would not include a tar and feathering activity at the conclusion, with me as the main attraction.

I am convinced some divine intervention took place, because I am sure I would not be able to duplicate what I said as the power point presentation was moving from one slide to the other.  In the end, the entire contingent of pastors gave unanimous approval to the plan set before them, not to mention a strong and lengthy applause at the conclusion of the presentation (It could be they were happy lunch followed!).  This is not a small matter since the plan with more detail added now goes to the Arizona Conference K-12 Education Board on February 6 and the Arizona Conference Executive Committee on February 7 for final approval and immediate implementation.  It’s a great day for education, since the plan, as it was presented provides a three-year plan for stabilizing, strengthening, and swelling our educational system.  God opened hearts and provided a vision for the group.

Now comes the work of following up and implementing.  I trust God will help us ride the crest of the wave of pastoral commitment and will help us meet the first goal by April 2012 as the first milestone in the plan.  I am very excited!

Something else took place before the meeting had progressed far beyond the morning devotional.  The president of the conference, a math teacher at TAA, the chef in charge of preparing the meal for the pastors, and yours truly sang a rendition of “Jesus Loves Me” by the Gaither Vocal Band.  In spite of pesky sound problems that made concentrating a difficult task, the song came off quite well.  It was an easy song compared to the Christmas ones we sang last month, but considering we only practiced last night and a bit this morning we are all very happy we did not crash and burn.  It was lot of fun!  I am sure we will be singing again at some point.

My vow of silence enters its eleventh day.  I am finding it easy to go without listening to things in the car, but I am intrigued by the concept of not thinking about anything in particular.  In other words, what is my mental “default drive” so to speak?   Where does my mind go when there is no input?  How will it impact me in my interpersonal encounters?  Will it influence my spiritual encounters?  I have already discovered that I have become more sensitive to responding to requests people make of me without much resistance.  I venture to say it is because there is nothing competing with the request whereas before I was usually watching, listening, or otherwise engaged in some media input activity.  I am a pretty focused person—I tend to zone out when I am doing an activity that interests me.  That is not good when you are being called to do something, go somewhere, or engage in conversation unrelated to your present activity.  The experiment continues…. (231)