Road Trip
By Captain Jim McGee
Southern Spirit
columnist
I drove to camp and I drove to camp and I drove to camp.
Elizabeth City, N.C., is a great place to live. It is centrally located six
hours from divisional headquarters. It is also six hours from Camp Walter
Johnson. Being six hours from divisional headquarters is a good thing. Six
hours from camp is not such a good thing. For all of you who have dreams of
being a camp van driver, here is an itinerary of a recent trip to see if you
are camp driver material.
6:00 a.m. Wake up
6:45 a.m. Pick up first campers
6:57
a.m. Pick up second campers; ask one boy where his trombone is.
"Isn't it on the van?" he asks. "No, go in your house and
get the instrument," I told him. He looked momentarily dazed and then says
it must be at the corps building. I thought, we haven't had junior band for
two weeks. He's probably not going to burn up junior conservatory with his
playing.
7:15 a.m. After two more pickups, we arrive at
the corps to get the trombone. Everyone's on the van now, and we pray for
traveling mercies, the camp staff, the kids and that Jesus might have a fun
part of their life during the week.
7:17 a.m. "If
you need to use the bathroom, now is the time, before we leave the parking
lot." Three-quarters of the van occupants promptly dismount from the van
and try to be the first to the restroom.
7:31 a.m.
"Yee-haw, we're on our way," and everyone in the van
cheers as we pull out of the corps parking lot.
7:33
a.m. "Captain McGee, I need to use the bathroom really, really
bad."
7:42 a.m. "Yee-haw, we're on our
way," I shout for the second time as we pull out of the corps parking
lot.
7:47 a.m. The girls in the van begin to sing
"A Hundred Bottles of Pop on the Wall." Pass one down and pass it
around.
8:18 a.m. In case you're wondering, it takes
about 20 minutes to sing the whole song through. If you are the van driver, it
only seems to take two hours.
8:30 a.m. Stop for
breakfast and a bathroom break, not necessarily in that order.
8:55 a.m. Leave McDonald's.
9:00
a.m. "Captain McGee, I need to go to the
bathroom."
9:10 a.m. Leave
McDonald's.
9:11 a.m. There begins a huge discussion
on what should be playing on the van's radio. After 10 minutes of back and
forth, the campers vote on the choice. The vote is three for a country station,
one for a hip-hop station and two for a rock and roll station. Sensing the need
to affirm and instill in their hearts and minds the greatness of American
democracy, I tune the radio to 90.3 FM, a classical music station. The outcry
is immediate: "That is so unfair." "We took a vote." I
answered with cool logic, "Get over it, I am driving, and it's my
van." To the territorial headquarters, I know the van really isn't
mine, I realize that all property is held in trust as a part of The Salvation
Army, a Georgia Corporation. However, it's not you driving the van with six
crazed kids.
9:45 a.m. "Captain McGee, I need to
go to the bathroom." Stopping just outside of Rocky Mount, N.C., I look at
the dashboard clock as the kids run back to the van from the convenience store.
We've spent three hours covering the distance we should have otherwise made
in two hours. For camp, we are right on time.
Sign up now.
If after this brief description you think you have what it takes to be a van
driver, contact your corps officer.
I have so much more to
say, but I have to go to the bathroom.
The line forms on the
right
By Major Frank Duracher
Southern
Spirit staff
Listening to a little Bobby Darin, a phrase
from one of his greatest hits flew by, as it had maybe a hundred times before -
but this time I noticed.
"Oh, the line forms on the
right, babe."
What I propose here is not an argument
for a particular political ideology, nor is it a debate on what is considered
right or wrong. It's just that Jesus referred to a separation of sheep from
goats; the sheep being herded on the right and the goats on the left (Matthew
25:33). In His analogy, the sheep were rewarded and the goats rejected.
The sheep were not rewarded because they are sheep; nor were the
goats cast out just because they were goats. Neither is it really because we
are on the right hand or on the left. After all, the sheep needed to be
gathered somewhere.
Rather, what seems to matter is why we
line up the way we do.
Inclusion in the accepted group
involves steadfast belief in Christ, obedience to His will and an insatiable
desire to put Him above all else. That is called righteousness.
Conversely, what gets us into trouble is the opposite - disbelief,
stubbornness and pride. That is called sin.
Only you can
know how you measure up. Only you can determine to which group you gravitate.
Life is a series of decisions, and often we are left with nothing but
consequences. But this is a decision that will determine how you live here and
hereafter.
I want to be in the line that forms on the right.
Not politically necessarily, and not even in principle. Only in terms of what
matters in heaven.
U.S. State Department, Salvation Army team up in humanitarian
response project
Major James Allison (standing, at
right), National Capital-Virginia divisional secretary, welcomes 11 guests of
the U.S. Department of State who visited NCV DHQ as part of their tour with the
Institute of International Education and are participating in a study of
"Humanitarian Responses to Crises and Disasters." They listened to a
presentation by John Berglund, national disaster services coordinator, on The
Salvation Army's disaster work. The group also discussed the role of
faith-based organizations in times of crises. Members of the delegation were
from Afghanistan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
Army
volunteers help make Graham festival a success in Baltimore
More than 80,000 faithful and seekers of the faith lifted their
hands and hearts in praise and worship at the 2006 Franklin Graham Festival in
Baltimore. Among them were more than 11,000 volunteers representing 655 area
churches, including men, women and youth from the Salvation Army Baltimore Area
Command's Boys and Girls Clubs, Booth House shelter and corps community
centers.
"This was a year-long partnership between the
festival organizers, The Salvation Army and hundreds of area churches,"
said Pamela Kasibante, the Army's Baltimore area mission specialist.
"As one of the more than 600 local churches participating, we had not
expected to have a significant role in the festival, but as it turned out, we
were blessed to play a pivotal role in not only all pre-event publicity, event
day volunteerism and intake and distribution of donated items, but to become an
essential part of a continued partnership with the Billy Graham Evangelistic
Association"
Kasibante and Army volunteers assisted
with pre-event flyer and publicity material distribution, served as lay
counselors and supervisors and spearheaded the design, solicitation, gate
collection, sorting and distribution of more than 650 donated hygiene kits for
the homeless donated by event attendees.
Post-event efforts
include a three-fold salvation effort by the Army with the Billy Graham
Association to reach out to those who attended the conference in search of new
or renewed faith. Among the Army's other contributions to the festival was
the participation of youth from the Booth House, corps community centers and
local Boys and Girls Clubs in a mass youth choir that performed during the
weekend's Youth Day.
Kasibante says the Army in
Baltimore will continue to partnership with the Graham Association over the
next several months through ongoing discipleship workshops and a discovery
group to be hosted at the corps and Booth House.
Get the Spirit
For subscription information,
Contact Joyce
Parris
1424 Northeast Expressway
Atlanta, GA
30329
(404) 728-1319