Look and Reach

It’s been a couple of weeks since I have been to my blog. “Mature” women should NOT lead this busy of a life. I expected such craziness when I was a young mother of active kids, but in the golden years, alarm clocks should go unset, schedules should have lots of space, and iced tea breaks should be taken frequently. Yeah right!

This was a whirlwind week. On Sunday through Thursday evenings, many of us were actively involved in SonSurf Beach Bash—our Vacation Bible School. Also, Monday evening, my college program hosted a parent dinner/workshop at the college for high school students who were going on an overnight honors trip on Wednesday and Thursday and their parents.

Wednesday morning at 5:30 a.m., we began loading a tour bus for that trip and headed for Indianapolis for a college, career, and cultural field trip. Two of my staff were unable to go with us, but I thankfully had a couple of other chaperones. The high schoolers were well behaved; yet being responsible for a large group of kids out of state overnight was a bit of a heavy weight on my shoulders. However, it gives those kids an opportunity to participate in experiences they would never have a chance to do.

For example, Butler University was a terrific college to visit particularly for several of our sports-minded kids as it has been in the NCAA final four basketball tourney for the past two years. It also has a beautiful campus, and surprisingly, our tour guide was a young lady from a nearby town that two of our adults knew. She gave terrific encouragement and advice to the kids, regardless of where they might attend college.

We toured Lucas Oil Stadium where the Colts play football, and the kids had the opportunity to get up close and personal with the various parts of it. They learned that there are many careers involved more than just football players. The same is true for the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, home of the Indy 500 race, but riding around the track was fun if not fast. We attended a dinner theater, stayed in a hotel, and visited downtown Indy to eat at a Weber Grill restaurant. It is exciting to watch a group of rural kids visit a city—many for the first time ever.

In church this morning, our speaker told a story illustrating how kids often never choose to do more than their parents have shown them. That explains the purpose of the program where I work—we seek to get kids to see more in order to more fully seek to do more. Our slogan is: Looking Forward, Reaching Higher.

You know, that’s good advice for us. Let’s do both of those things.

As Isaiah 55:9 says:
♫ “Your ways are higher than mine
Your ways are higher than mine
Your ways are higher than mine
Much higher
Higher, higher, much, much higher
Higher, higher, much higher” ♫

Let’s look forward and reach higher!