Gang, I wrote this about a month ago in rough form but didn't get the chance to polish it up. It fits the "mission" of this blog as well as anything I've posted here.
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We're in Virginia Beach this week.
Evie got us a deal at a nice, but certainly not luxurious, "resort" on the Boardwalk. In fact, it's called The Boardwalk. Our "suite" is ocean view. Evie works the internet until she can find a steal. If fact, as I write this, dolphins are swimming up the coast.
Evie is one of those people who can squeeze a penny and get five dimes out of it.
The place we're staying is owned by one of the resort companies that sells points their members use to take vacations, cruises.
When we checked in, we were directed to the person who gives you your, uh, guest gift packet. That person's real job is to get you to sign you up for a sales presentation.
Her schpiel began with the offer of a bride. We've been through this many times. You have to say no a bunch of times to get away.
This time, however, the bribe was in Evie's wheelhouse: A free week at one of the resorts owned by the chain. (Evie also finagled a $50 gift card to Evie's favorite restaurant in town.
So, we agreed to attend a two hour,...I don't know what their euphemism is for it,...but it was a sales talk.
We showed up on time, met our "counselor" and then went off with about eight other attendee couples and then met again with our counselor.
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Since I stopped working at the store, my opportunities to function as an ambassador of the Kingdom of God are far fewer than I used to have but living as ambassadors is our foundational mindset. Both of us.
So, we met with the counselor and, at the same time, engaged in being ambassadors.
Needless to say, at one of these encounters, our own, well, Kingdom message isn't often productive, but this time, it was.
The sales guy asked me if I'd always been a grocery store manager.
He opened the door. Getting inside it in my ambassadorial role took several more steps and he led me directly to the spot.
In less than a minute, I was sharing the part of my testimony that I'm most passionate about.
(The counselor's name is Alfonso. By the end, lightheartedly, we were calling him Fonzie.)
The Fonz asked me why I left the ministry and I told him my story in the way that often inspires "unchurched" people...probably because its so purely honest and authentic.
I told him. We are more committed to Jesus than we have ever been. We obey Jesus as carefully as we ever have. But, over the years, we just became so disillusioned with institutionalized Christianity that I chose to make my ministry out of living for Jesus, especially, among the kids I worked with.
We began to connect. Further into our meeting, the Fonz gave us a tour of a model unit and, while we were there, he invited us to sit down in the living room and the three of us had what, later on, he called our "heart to heart."
We talked for a few minutes about the program and how the points work.
Then, Fonz said, "So, Bill, what is sin?"
He describes his ethnicity as mixed. He wasn't specific but, apparently, he has some Puerto Rican and Muslim in him.
Evie and I talked about what sin is in the Christian way of thinking. He explained what he has learned.
Evie is so amazingly empathetic and, from her heart, so effective in communicating God's grace and mercy at times like this.
To be clear, the Fonz didn't pray the sinners' prayer. Still, he said, repeatedly, that our openness to each other, and to him, was something he's almost never seen.
We know how sales people are, but we're convinced that he was sincere because he kept saying it after the sales part of our meeting was settled.
To be honest, I've been discouraged during COVID with the dearth of opportunities to be an ambassador. It's truly what we believe in and it's how I, especially, am gifted.
It's a way of life. I don't get to live it on the edge like I did with the Fonz. It's amazing how the Lord creates opportunities out of whole cloth.
