Oh What a Monday!
Monday was once again another adventurous day in the chronicles of the Aletheia Tampa church plant. I wasn’t going to post about it but the more I think about it, the more that I feel inclined to share this with all of you. Our weeks are so busy and filled with so much that it has taken me three days to muster up the energy to write about it.
On Monday morning at 10am I received a call from Jenny and she told me that we didn’t have a room officially reserved for our Monday night meeting. The Marshall Studdent Center alerted her that no one in fact was able to reserve a room for the entire week. This was communicated to us for the first time on MONDAY MORNING! We are beginning to learn the USF system quickly and thankfully the learning curve is hapening right at the beginning. So, instead of panicking, we switched gears and decided to have a cookout on campus behind the MSC building. This would prove to be the best decision we could have ever made. I’m pretty sure our great God had something to do with it.
At 6 we started grilling some burgers and dogs and at first we only had about 17 people show up. So I was thinking this worked out ok because our group was going to be smaller than previous weeks anyways. But then people kept coming. In all, around 30 people showed up specifically for Aletheia Tampa’s Monday night gathering. And we ended up feeding right around 35-40, including a couple homeless people who happened to be on campus that night. And, the best part about it all, somebody trusted their life to Christ. Yep, that’s right! And that was the second person that day on campus to receive Christ as Lord and Saviour. What a day! What could have been a disaster ended up being an amazing moment in the short history of this brand new church. That is the abridged version. Thanks for praying everyone. And for your viewing pleasure:
Here are some pics…
Hey dude, glad to see things are happening. Cool pic of the Drew Man. Praying for you all. Miss you bunches.
Bushels of Love
Dad
As you probably know, I taught special education. For several years I had a student that I will call Janet. When I first met her Janet was an 8 year old severely autistic child with major behavior issues. Before she became my student she was being considered for a residential placement. Janet would destroy a room. She was constant motion, tearing everything off the walls, climbing bookcases with no fear, grabbing any and all food…….She was pretty much kept in a chair with restraints both in school and at home. Her safety was a major concern. When I took the class my first thought was, “how can she learn to behave out of the chair if you don’t get her out of the chair”. So my 3 aides and I took turns working with her, constantly holding her hand. She would jerk away, do flips, suddenly drop to the floor. Our bodies were feeling the brunt, but we thought we saw a slight improvement. I could go on with techniques we used but let me just say that things were maybe getting better until……….
One day she came to school and started screaming-about every 10 seconds, very rhythmic, very ear piercing, VERY annoying! We took turns with her. Sort of a tag team. We tried everything that is fairly common with autistic students-nothing, nada, zilch. We were frustrated, exasperated, at our wits end. One day I sent the rest of the class out into the school halls. Janet and I sat in a darkened room, squished in an overstuffed chair, my arms hugging her. Her screaming was constant. It took every ounce of control for me not to shake the daylights out of her-”Janet STOP, you’re frustrated, we’re frustrated. Just stop screaming and we will all be happy, Don’t you understand!”-I felt like saying and doing.
I couldn’t take much more. I had tried every conventional and unconventional technique I could think of. I was out of ideas. There was only one thing I hadn’t tried. As she screamed, I started praying. “Dear God, give me one thing to help this child”, “Dear God, I just need one thing”. “Please help me”. “Give me just one thing”, over and over and over. As she screamed, I continued to pray. We sort of got into a rhythm. After about 10-15 minutes she was still screaming and I was still frustrated. I thought, well He has got to have heard me by now, I couldn’t think of anything else to do. I had prayed all I could pray. I had said it all. So now what do I do………
I decided to sing, “Old McDonald had a farm”. You know it has enough verses to go on for days. If nothing else it might help keep my sanity. I started singing. After about one verse I noticed that Janet was not screaming. OK, a coincidence. I stopped singing; she started screaming; I sang again, she stopped. I played around with this for a few minutes and realized that as long as I kept singing she STOPPED screaming.
HE gave me ONE thing.
Singing and songs became part of Janet’s curriculum. We used recording devices, singing, anything we could think of. I found a music therapist who gave us great ideas. Janet’s behavior started changing. She was happier, we were happier, and she was now able to start a program that made a big difference in her behavior and ability to learn.
I truly know that my prayer was answered. It wasn’t a major thing, it didn’t change the world, but it made a difference to me. And it definitely made a difference to Janet.
I apologize for such a long story. But, I will never forget it.