Deacon's Diary

Deacon's Diary is a weekly feature that appears on the back side of the bulletin at the First Baptist Church of Avalon, Texas.

Fully supplied?

I missed you guys and gals last Sunday because I was helping the oldest daughter of mine get moved into her college dorm. We had to make sure that she had everything she needed in there. A place to study and all that goes along with that. A place to rest. A place to eat. You get the idea. I hope she has everything that she needs.

The following Tuesday I went to the good ole Wal-Mart to get Duncan's school supplies for this year. The right kinds of notebooks and paper. Pens and pencils and the like. The rulers and glue sticks. I had a list, thankfully, and I filled it right down to the last item.

Abby and Nolan didn't start school until Thursday. I was out on the road at the time, but I called them both to make sure that they had everything they needed, too. Abby is a Senior this year, so she has a short schedule and then goes to her after school job. When I talked to Nolan he was with his mother at the good ole Wal-Mart getting all his school supplies together. Everything handled. Good to go. All bases are covered. I can breath easy.

I know that I am not alone in this little start of school drill. I was made painfully aware of that when I saw the lines and crowds around the school supply isle at the good ole Wal-Mart. Everyone was scrambling to get the kids ready for another year of learning. Most of them had a list like I did. Checking each item off as they went along. Making darn sure that not a single thing got left out.

All this made me think about something that is of much more importance than any school supply list. Are we as parents making sure that our kids are ready for the afterlife? In the end there will a test. A test that not a single one of them can afford to fail.
 

Deacon's Diary is a weekly featurethat appears on the back side of the bulletin at the First Baptist Church of Avalon, Texas.

Call me!

It must have been about fifteen years ago, but I can remember it like it was yesterday. I was working as a dispatcher at the time, so all phone calls to the company came through me. Including this one.

The call I'm refering to was from one of our customers with a major complaint. It seems that one of our drivers, named Jerry, was having a little trouble getting his truck lined up on the scales at the customer's facility. So much trouble, in fact, that Jerry had some how ripped a hole in one of his fuel tanks and was now circling the customers yard leaking diesel all over the place and making a terrible mess.

I can't repeat the exact words that our customer said to me on the phone, so lets just say that the words where strong enough that I realized that immediate action was in order. I called Jerry.

"Jerry," I said, "You need to get out that yard now! You are leaking fuel and making the manager very mad." This news caught Jerry by surprise. He didn't know he leaking fuel. He did leave the yard, however, and upon checking out my claim and finding that he did indeed have a leak, he called me back. In a stuttering voice Jerry said, "You you are right.....but how how did you know that!"

For a moment Jerry was confused. How in the world could I have known about his little problem before he did since I was miles away from his location. He had no idea that I had already gotten a call from the manager of that yard.

As Christians we can get somewhat the same reaction from folks when we testify to God's truth. At times people will react to us when hearing the truth much like Jerry reacted to me on the phone that day. How could we know that? Well, that's because we have been called.

Deacon's Diary is a weekly feature that appears on the back side of the bulletin at the First Baptist Church of Avalon, Texas.

com-moon-yun

Forty years have past since that famous moon landing of the Apollo 11 mission and the United States Astronauts. Doesn't seem like it was that long ago, does it? News and talk radio programs have been in a 'buzz' (no pun intended) about the fortieth anniversary of that great scientific achievement.

Most of us can remember the sequence of events surrounding that mission and the words spoken on the radio from the ship back to mission control in Houston. Words like, "The Eagle has landed", or the now famous phrase that went something like, "One small step for a man. One giant leap for mankind". We all either heard them or heard about them. They are part of our history.

But I heard about something else that happened on the moon that for forty years was hidden from me. Something of great importance. And when I heard about it I was left wondering why in the heck haven't I heard about it before.

Buzz Aldrin had brought with him a tiny communion kit, given to him by his church, that contained a silver chalice and wine vial about the size of the tip of his finger. During the morning he radioed, "Houston, this is Eagle. This is the LM pilot speaking. I would like to request a few moments of silence. I would like to invite each person listening in, whoever or wherever he may be, to contemplate for a moment the events of the last few hours, and to give thanks in his own individual way." Then their ship went into 'radio blackout'.

In the radio blackout Buzz opened the little plastic packages which contained the bread and the wine. Then he read the Scripture, 'I am the vine, you are the branches. Whosoever abides in me will bring forth much fruit.' He had intended to read his communion passage back to earth, but at the last minute NASA officials had requested that he not. So for forty years I never knew it.

The reason that the NASA officials requested Buzz not to take communion publicly from the moon is because they were already embroiled in a law suit filed by atheist groups when another Astronaut read from Genesis during Apollo 8's orbit around the moon.

The efforts of that atheist group were successful in keeping me in the dark about this event, I guess. For forty years anyway.  Forty years. Where have I heard that before?

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