Update Tuesday 22/02/11

We had a great trip last week as we set out on a mission trip to the Memphis area.   It started out with a great night of music in Nashville, where we stopped on our way down.  We went to a venue recommended by a friend and heard some fantastic musicians.  The next day we headed further south to Tuscumbia, Alabama, where we were able to visit with our friend Scot and his family.  We had an amazing time catching up, sharing about what God has been doing in our lives and hearing about what God has been doing in their ministry in Alabama.  We had the opportunity to worship with their church on Sunday morning and then had an invitation to share and do some music for their evening service.  We ended up staying an extra night in Alabama in order to share at the service and then go out for a meal with Scot, Jim (the senior pastor) and some others from the church.  It was a great evening where again we got the chance to share about so many of the things that God has been doing over the last number of years.   There is something amazing about taking the opportunity to sit and reflect and then recall all that God has done.  The chance to share was actually really encouraging to me, more so than I would have thought.  Sharing all the stories of what God did for us through Liam's journey, then all that God has done since his surgeries, and how that really caused us to re-evaluate priorities, the searching that it began and the ultimate decision to go back to Hamilton in a new capacity, allowed us a fresh encounter with our living and active God.  We ended our visit with excitement for all that God has done, anticipation for all that God is going to do, and with the hope that we may be able to work together in the future.

 

We then headed over from Alabama to a camp just outside Memphis.  We met up with some friends that we have worked with in the past that live in the area.  For the past seven years or so, these guys have been faithful friends to the Canadian Baptist Builders.  Being a smaller group, and with the border crossing, it is difficult for our Canadian teams to travel with too many tools.  Our friends have so generously given of their time, energy, talents and resources to travel across the States bringing their tool trailer and their expertise to come alongside the Canucks as we serve on building projects.  This year we had to opportunity to go to them and serve as their church has recently purchased a camp that they are trying to refurbish for the purpose of ministry to the greater Memphis area.  We spent the week at The Grove, constructing a new building that will be used as a tuck shop and ministry building.  We worked with a great team, had a great week, used some great power tools and built a great structure.  We are praying for all the ministry that will happen at the camp, the kids from the Memphis area that will visit, and for the mission teams serving the Memphis area that it will house.

There were a couple of really neat God moments that I should share that I still find mind boggling.  When we were in Alabama, Scot asked us about what kind of work and with whom we would be working in Memphis.  We shared the name of the camp, the church and some of the guys that would be with us.  He let us know that a group from his church had been at that very camp a few weeks before, that they do lots of mission work in partnership with the church in Tenessee and some of the people we met in Alabama had been on mission trips with the guys that we were working with.  Small world!

The other really uncanny moment has specifically to do with Hamilton.  One of the guys we were working with, whose name is Bill, actually used to play drums for Conway Twitty in the early days, before he was called Conway Twitty.  He is so full of stories about the music scene around Memphis in those early days of rock 'n' roll, including Elvis, Sun Studios etc.  He loves to tell the stories and we love to listen!  Well, one day my father in law was chatting with him when Billy mentioned that he played with Conway (Harold at the time) until he left and moved up to Canada.  He mentioned that Harold had moved to Hamilton, which sort of shocked my father in law Bob.  Bob asked him about Hamilton and Billy said that he actually remembered the address and that it was on Herkimer.  Bob's jaw dropped and he was almost speechless.  He did manage to share with Billy, however, that he had personally been on that street prayer walking just a few weeks earlier.  Bob had been with us on our prayer walk back in January. He prayer walked on Herkimer, which is in the neighbourhood in which we will be beginning our new work.
It is amazing to think that God could take us all the way to Memphis, and then back fifty years on a history of rock 'n' roll lesson,  in order to give us some further confirmation of our future. 
 
As a bonus, Billy owns a music studio and had Kim and I over one evening.  Don't forget to check back for Free Art Friday to hear what we came up with.