Ok, so i haven’t blogged in a while and most of the time i end up with some story going on that makes you pull out the kleenex. Cuz hey, there’s a lot of cool stuff going on. If you are new here. I’d love for you to go back and read everything so you can get caught up with what this site is about.
But meanwhile…i saw something that just made me laugh and i think i figured out how to embed it in here so….watch and laugh. BTW it’s a lady named Gladys talking to Ellen. watch the whole thing.
Sorry about the video stuff below the main screen….i don’t know how to not have that there.
If you don’t know Jack, then before you read this blog…go back to all the blogs that are about jack…watch his videos, read the blogs and then come back here and read this…and if you do the same thing reading as i am doing while i am writing, you are gonna need some tissue.(There are a number of them with Jack’s name on them, so this will take a while…but you have nothing at all that will be any better for you than this.)
Last Friday Night, we had our annual fund raiser called Night for Africa. We showed the two videos posted on the earlier this summer about Jack. Then Jack came to the stage. He was kinda quiet at first.
He sat across the table from me on a huge stage in front of 2500 people. He spoke of how thankful he was for all the people who had blessed him and who had helped him to get his arms. As i started to walk with him off the stage he whispered (into my mic) which wasn’t then really a whisper. Mr. Lanny may i say something else? I was a bit nervous but what was I going to say? Sure Jack, say anything you want. I wish i had it recorded, because i won’t do it justice here. But it went something like this. Imagine if you will this monologue in a very broken Kenyan accent spoken from a young man with two artificial arms, who has grown up in the slums with almost no education, but with a beautiful smile and a heart as big as the globe.
“In the book of Joshua, there were men who surrounded a city and they obeyed God and screamed and yelled and made enough noise to bring down the walls of the city of Jericho. There is hunger and poverty and AIDS and death in my country and i would like you to stand and make noise and let it be loud enough that your very voices in this place would begin to ring out loudly and bring down the walls of hunger…and poverty…and disease….and death….and when those walls come down we will have hope. Will you stand with me now and shout?”
Holy Cow (my words) 2500 people stood to their feet and began to shout and i stood on that stage and watched a young man who just months before had been orphaned and trying to figure out how to pick up scraps of food outside of restaurants in Nairobi with no arms to accomplish it….and I saw God’s grace and mercy pouring down on this young man as he valiantly lifted his prosthetic arms to proclaim that we as a people can be used by God to bring down the walls that destroy us.!!!
That, my friends, was combined with the spirit of God working through Jeff Foxworthy, and then the Daraja Children’s Choir to show us the smiles and songs and beautiful face and wonders of God.
Add to that…TONIGHT…
At about seven thirty this evening, most of us were preparing to watch the debates which would potentially tell us the fate of our nation ( to a degree). But about 30 of us were gathered around a swimming pool watching a story with so much more drama, so much more spirit, so much more of the things that make life what it is. I stood beside Jack and grabbed his upper arm ( he wasn’t wearing his prosthetics) and we walked out into a pool together. We laughed because it was cold. We joked because i am old and might not pull him back up in a minute especially since he had nothing to hold on to me with …so it would be all me. I mentioned the story of Mephibosheth in the Bible, where for so long this young crippled boy ran away from David because he thought David would punish him. He wasn’t aware that David was pursuing him to show him his love. Jack had believed for a while that God had punished him but …like Mephibosheth, Jack has learned that God wants jack to sit at the Kings table and eat the kings food…Just as David wished that for Mephibosheth. Becuase He loved him and wants the best for him. God loves jack and wants the best for him and has shown him that in the past few months. And then in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, i slowly brought jack down into the water, held him for a sec,
and raised him back out. His small arms were raised and his smile beamed across his face. for a moment i just stood there thanking God for letting me right there in the center of that cold pool, holding on to a man whom God was holding on to.
Many of the people who entered into Jacks life were there to watch. The man who first heard of him and said he would like to give money to get Jack some arms. The Dr of Prosthetics, who formed Jacks arms and got them to fit. The man who takes care of Jack while he is here. The people who donated special funds and houses and time and energy to take care of Jack while he was here. It was a powerful night.
A young man from the streets of Kenya today professed his faith in Jesus in front of 30 people in a swimming pool in Alpharetta GA. There is a chance that that particular incident will affect more lives than either of the candidates we watched debate tonight. He is going back to his country on Monday.
His whole life is in front of him. Just the way Billy Graham’s life was in front of him when he was 25.
He lives in a starving nation of 32 million people. Maybe he or someone he touches will set his world on fire and help to men to see the real issues. Or maybe, watching him tonight, will help US to see the real issues…and not worry so much about the ones we heard on the Fox network tonight.
Think about that.
Sorry it has been a while since i have written. Have you ever noticed how much time life takes up?
As for the comments on the preachers, i got a bunch but as promised only published the comments of those of you who were positive.
If you want me to publsih yours and it isn’t so positive, just feel free to let me know but this is by no means an open debate on who is good and who is not. It is for an experiment i am doing that i cant quite tell you about yet. If it works, it will be fun.
I may list a bunch of others in a day or so and get your opinions on those, And i might add that your opinions have been very helpful.
Meanwhile, i have blogged about Jack and Jessie and Pain and a lot of aother tear-jerking stories.
I don’t like to write about mundane unless it if for pure entertainment. So, if you are follwoing, let me know what you wnat to hear from me…poignant stories, funney weird stuff, leadership ideas, creative ideas, stuff i found that you might not have, fun videos ….do you want me to stir up trouble ? In a fun kind of way. What???? How about excerpts from my next book. would you help me get it virally marketed? Do you want to hear miracle stories about africa? I got stuff in my head just ready to bust out….but only so much room in order to do a shorter blog post than this.
I could give you weird pictures.
I could ask you to come to Bigstuf Camps next summer, or book our African Childrens Choir. or come to CAtalyst. in October…its gonna be great. I just want to make sure if i am writing then it is something that people want to read. Meanwhile here is a bizarre older video for you just to entertain you, but i am warning you….i am gonna start making you cry unless you tell me different.
Meanwhile…smile at this.
Ok, now and then just for fun,I’ll put something from the past on here.(Maybe two years ago) This was probably one the most fun days at Northpoint Church I’ve ever had. Andy was great, as always, and allowed us to do some really fun stuff. Enjoy.
I told you about Rachel Kent in the last blog. Bigstuf host lots of incredible students who exemplify a wonderful spirit even in the midst of the hardest of times. Rachel is one of those students.
This is a bit of her story.
Never knew that when i started blogging a month ago that there would be so many stories that i really thought were worth telling. I get lots of notes from you saying you are sitting in your kitchen crying or in a coffee shop looking for kleenex. As i mentioned in the first post, I hope i can offer an opportunity for you to think ….to laugh….to cry….to see God doing things that make life on this planet have some meaning. He has been in the middle of the poignant stories of Jack and Jessie and I am sure he smiled along with a lot of us one night a few weeks ago at Bigstuf. Watch this.
A few stories worth publishing tonight. I collect stories from students at Bigstuf. All kinds.
Here is what happened tonight. A dad wrote me a note about how proud he was of his 7 year old son.
Son’s name is Zack. Zack was at camp last year and heard the stories about how people are dying all over the world because of a lack of clean water. The note i got explained how Zack went home and started selling bottles of water to try to make enough money to send over to Africa to build a well.
You don’t normally think about a 7 year old boy following thru on such a big task. Here is the deal.
The kid kept at it. Sold water at his church, at his grand parents church , in his front yard, and kept on going til he made $3300. I didn’t know it when i stood in the audience and read the letter, but Zack was back. After i read what his dad had written there was excitement in the back of the auditorium and the cutest little kid you can imagine came and stood beside me at the center of the auditorium. I asked him why he did it. He just said something to the effect of “people need help”
A seven year old boy just saved the lives of over a thousand people.
What have you been doing?
I had three more stories but i think each one of these needs to stand alone now…so think about this one today. i will tell you more later.
lanny
I think we have posted our choir singing on here and a few other places but you don’t get to see them having fun sometimes. We give them permission when they are with me to have fun in the middle of the program….mainly because i want you to see who they really are. Just wonderful kids who love to sing and laugh and enjoy relationships. Here’s a few edited cuts just for you to smile.
If you know me then you know I am at the Bigstuf Camp right now in Panama City beach. I don’t consider it a camp anymore. It’s an unexplainable experience that a blog or a video can’t really depict.
1500 people each week experiencing God in ways that most of the world could only wonder about.
Everyone who comes here talks about trying to explain it and are left speechless. The stories are stories about Jack, and Jessie, and a group of children from orphanages in Kenya who sing from their hearts to a God they really know. The story is really about God. A God who knew Jack when he was just a baby in Kenya and allowed him to lose his hands knowing that his heart would be full as he stood in America with a smile on his face proclaiming God as sovereign. A God who knew that the thousands of arms that hugged Jack this summer would somehow make up for him not having his own.
A God who places his arms around a girl named Jessie every night and shows her how the cancer in her body is a megaphone that shouts to the world that God’s love and grace are so much bigger than disease.
A God whose smile lights up the universe every week as he watches 1500 students lift their voices to Him while the angels can’t help but turn their heads to see whose volume matches theirs.
I want this blog to be in everyones mail box, in living color, full on HD and 3D so the world can see that life is bigger than anything we call normal and God is on the move and dancing across the world connecting nations and displaying his glory through kids who are anything but normal because they have had an encounter with their creator.
Tomorrow, I will add a video that can’t begin to show what really happens here.
Well I suppose it can begin to….but for now…know that God is being magnified and the world is changing. And it’s happening because a bunch of teenagers from both sides of the planet saw his face this week.
And since i like pictures..here is one of our Daraja Children’s Choir of Africa.
