The Man or Woman Game

Why hello there, and welcome to one of my last updates of the summer. I only have two and a half weeks left of internship shenanigans before I reenter the glorious Midwest, so I’m soaking up the golden coast goodness while I can.

Speaking of that same golden goodness, I preached my first sermon this past Wednesday at the local retirement facility. The residents were quite complementary of my preaching, which I appreciated, but really I think I could have read Mother Goose poems to them and still have received similar appreciative reactions.

Probably my favorite part about the whole experience happened before I even stood up to preach. I was reminded once again of the joys of being in an environment in which secrets must be shouted in order to be heard, when an old lady sitting four seats down the row from me leaned over to her friend and asked loudly,

“Is that a man or a woman?”

I’ll admit it; the classic “Man or Woman Game” is played from time to time amongst the Vanderzee brothers, but usually, the individual in question and most other innocent bystanders are unable to hear the inquiry. I had a tough time stifling my laughter as I imagined how wonderful life would be if I could be like that old lady and spend the next sixty years assigning genders to the ambiguously dressed.

For the life of me, I couldn’t tell who the old lady was talking about. I’m fairly sure that it wasn’t my personal gender that was in question, but just in case, I’m growing out my beard for when I come back to preach next week.

In all seriousness, I would appreciate your prayers as I prepare to give my second and final sermon of the summer next Wednesday. Also, if you could pray for the community of Rosewood Church, that they might continue to share in God’s love.

Thank you! Have a wonderful day!

-chris

SERVE and Surf

Hello there, faithful readers,

I just finished a week of SERVE. It was a great week of hundreds of high schoolers and their leaders getting involved in the community. However, due to a number of colliding factors, I almost went crazy. Symptoms of insanity began my first night sleeping on the concrete floor of a Sunday School classroom, suffocating from the smell of the high school guys and their unbelievable amounts of cologne. It only made matters worse when these guys started working out in the sun and their cologne clouds mated with their body odor to create a hellish lovechild of unprecedented stench. As if that weren't enough to make me go crazy, I also endured a twenty minute van ride each day listening to nothing but the latest Top 40 singles. If I hear "California Girls" one more time, I'm going to snap. Combine those factors with a severe lack of sleep and a serious lack of alone time and it's a wonder that I'm still functioning.

It's probably because God showed up this week. Big time. He was busy changing lives. Breaking the hearts of the proud and giving hope to the disadvantaged. I was a bit skeptical of SERVE at the beginning having never participated in it before. But now I'm a believer. I'm a SERVE fan.

As a way of unwinding from the madness of SERVE, I went surfing. Yep, one of the deacons and I decided to skip the first service on Sunday and catch some waves. I know, there are several things wrong with that picture, but I had a blast, so it's ok. Though to be honest, no one in their right mind would truthfully call what I did "surfing." My morning activities that day would be more aptly described as, "swallowing salt water like it's my job while being tossed like a rag doll by the pounding surf."

I usually take that description and edit out all the words except for the last one, in order to save time.

It's workin' out pretty well for me.

If you are so inclined, however, I would love it if you would continue to pray for me. Here are some areas that you can focus on:

-that God would continue to guide my actions

-that my work here would be an effective contribution to the kingdom of God

-that I would continue meeting with God daily

-that those impacted by SERVE would continue to sense and follow the work of the Holy Spirit

Thank you! You all are so wonderful! Thanks for all of your support!

-chris

Raise Your Hand If You're Embarrassed!

Holy gravy boats, we've got so much going on in Bellflower right now. Let me just fill you in on a few of the most important details.

The other day, I was chatting it up with some of the moms of the kids I tutor on Tuesday nights. We were talking in Spanish, and right after I mentioned that I had studied in the Yucatan, they began mumbling something amongst themselves. I didn't catch much, but I did hear two key words: "William" and "Levy." Yup, I thought I had left that reputation in Mexico, but apparently not.

For those of you who don't know, William Levy was the star of a Spanish soap opera that was filmed in Merida, Mexico, where I studied last fall. Apparently he looks kind of like me. Whenever I wore sunglasses in Merida, I would usually receive a couple double-takes of people who thought they had seen their local TV celebrity.

You should google him, but maybe keep your kids out of the room when you do this, because before Billy Levy started acting, he did quite a bit of underwear modeling.

Yikes.

Moving on, this past Sunday, I was in charge of leading worship from acoustic guitar for both morning English services. We hadn't practiced during the week, so we got up ultra early to run through the songs. However, the church has kind of old sound equipment, and we wasted a lot of time trying different cables and direct boxes, searching for the cause of my guitar not coming through the sound system. After about 45 minutes of stressful waiting around, my bassist made an off-hand joke about how I probably just needed to turn my volume up.

I looked down at the guitar and, lo and behold, there was a volume knob, and it was set at zero. I sighed in embarrassment and switched it back to it's regular church setting of eleven, and told the sound guy my huge mistake. He almost stabbed me. Luckily, my Cousin Becky tackled him, sending the knife flying harmlessly into the empty pews.

That was a close one.

But yeah, things are getting pretty wild around here. SERVE starts this week Saturday. Click here to find out what SERVE has done in other cities. Oh wait! Click here. That's better.

In order to get ready for SERVE to come to our church, we made some videos that demonstrate the basic rules for the arriving students and leaders. My main participation involved donning a bikini top in order to show why we aren't allowing 2-piece bathing suits. There's nothing like a hairy man in a bikini to help kids remember the rules.

The pandemic of nightmares might be the only serious drawback from showing such a great video. That and I've completely lost all of my shame. Shoot.

Right now you're probably thinking, "This boy needs prayer." And you're right! Here are some things that you can pray about:

-That God would be present and tangible during SERVE

-That all of the participants would be excellent witnesses to Christ's love

-That the Rosewood staff would remain in prayer, rather than trying to administrate this behemoth of a youth program by themselves

Thank you for reading! Y'all are great!

-chris