All the Fun We Can Get

We are looking forward to being together with Bob and Robbie and seeing our dear ones in the Northland, and the two-week countdown has started.

Meanwhile we intend on having as much fun as we can before the moving van carries away our earthly possessions. Actually we have had a number of late nights in a row, and as I lay dozing on the couch I figured that was it. There was no more umph in me.

I was wrong. God did it again, and while the boys went to youth group, I got called in to make tortillas from scratch with a couple of Mexican friends in the church kitchen.

This is the beginning of Weekend of Champions, a prison ministry of Bill Glass, that will send about 300-400 volunteers into the jails, prisons, and penitentiaries around Jackson. After serving supper we grabbed some too and sat among the team members. Larry Rowe sat next to me. His story is that he was a young black Muslim and in jail on four felony counts, 3 of them violent.

During a very low point at which he was facing 25 years to life sentence, and feeling hopeless in his jail cell, he got word that his little girl, the only bright spot in his life, had died. He felt utterly hopeless.

It was during this time of desperation that he stopped praying and begging Allah to help him, and began calling on the Name of the Lord Jesus. Years before an elderly gentleman on the street had told him Jesus loved him, something Muslims do not know. As he called on Jesus in his prison cell, he immediately became aware that he was not alone and that Someone had heard his prayer.

Later he learned that the man had passed away, but that his widow would like to see him. When he went to her house, she took him to the man's study. There on the wall was a long list of names of people for whom the man had prayed daily, some names for years. His name was among those on the top of the list. It had taken several years of faithful prayers for the young Muslim, but finally he had come to know his Savior.

I remembered that story as I saw a Muslim father of one of the tennis kids ahead of me on the side walk. I quickly breathed a small prayer and began to chat with him about our kids. I then asked him if he knew Jesus Christ. He replied, yes, that he was a prophet. I told him Jesus Christ loves us so much that He died for our sins. Isn't that wonderful?

Yes, and isn't it fun how God will teach you what you need to know just in time to share it with a lost soul. His love is truly unfailing. He does want us to pack in all the fun we can get before we leave Mississippi.