FBCASHMTATL2010-2: "The white devils are here!"

I don’t think we were ready for him. He came at us from the hallway of North Peachtree Baptist Church, our first Atlantan interaction. I think he introduced himself as Tim, but I just called him Rand McNally. He wore this.


Rand really knew his stuff, but we didn’t really know what he was talking about. I believe he tried to convey the similarity between us going to Cambodia and having no idea what was going, and the people we’ll be working with coming here and having no idea what’s going on. But he was so intense, and so outrageous that it just drew blank stares from the students…and the adults.

He paced back and forth, but not sideways. He paced at us. He called us the Special Forces of ministry to this area. He screamed a lot and I think he said they may say things like “The white devils are here!” Probably just an exaggeration though. Hopefully. He did, however, very astutely warn us that they could see a bunch of white people walking up to the door as the INS coming to get them. We should be kind and calm. And absolutely no jokes about being the INS.

All joking aside, he is passionate about the work here. At one point the had us all doing a “we got spirit, yes we do, we got spirit how bout you” chant/reply thing with the phrases “Take the Church!” “To the people!” That’s what we are doing here. We are showing these people, who are in a place that is strange, new and a little bit scary, how much God loves them. That is the Church, God’s love. It is the central point of the Church, and we want them to understand that. With love being active, we are obeying God’s call to love by taking His church to them.

We’ll be spending time sharing God’s love with the kids in an area known as the International Village. We’ll put on Backyard Bible Clubs, which are basically games, songs, snacks and a Bible story. These are great ways to show a family that someone besides them cares about their kids.

We’ll also spend some time in the mornings at the Cross Cultural Ministries Education and Activities Center doing a little remodeling for some nice lady named Virginia that I think Rand knows.

After we worked all of this out, and told Rand goodbye, we headed to The Varsity. It’s this giant fast-food place in downtown Atlanta. It seats something like 800 people. But don’t worry, the burgers are about the size of coaster, so there’s not much room for grease. Although, there was still quite a bit of grease.

Then we tried to find Wal-Mart. That took a while. We had a lovely, late-night drive through some of the finer areas of Atlanta proper, and eventually arrived at your friendly neighborhood Wal-Mart, a little carsick from all the u-turns.

Everyone is trying to wind down now. Though I’m not sure if basketball and other games will work for that. All of our beds are set up, which we will have to move in the morning for the church members to use the rooms we are sleeping in (but that’s okay because “flexibility” is what we’re about on this trip!). We’re about to have another meeting, then I am sure we will go to bed. There are a few quirks about the building that we will need to go over, and we need to make sure everyone is in the right frame of mind for some ministry. I have no worries about these kids, though. This is an amazing group. I’ve been on trips like this before, in high school and in college, and this is one of the best groups I’ve ever seen.

Keep praying that God will do something big in all of our lives, and in the lives of the people here. I’ll let you know how it goes.