Can you fathom the mysteries of God?
Can you probe the limits of the Almighty?"
Job 11:7

This past Saturday afternoon, I returned with 25 youth and 9 other adults from our annual Sr. High Youth Mission Trip. This year's trip was different than it has been in the past. For several years this group has attended Group Work Camps, an organization that conducts several dozen mission camps in communities around the states. For this year's trip, we took a break from large group mission camps and embarked on a mission trip of our own. We headed to Little Rock, Arkansas and spent a week mainly working for Ferncliff Camp. Ferncliff is one of over 140 Presbyterian Camps and Conference Centers in the U.S.

At camp, our job was to construct a 900-foot long walking/nature trail around the lake of their new youth camping area. However, each day of the work project, we sent a fourth of the group out to work in an inner-city mission environment. On Thursday, one of our groups headed to serve lunch to the homeless at the First Presbyterian Church Stewpot in Downtown Little Rock. As the group was leaving, a volunteer from the Stewpot rushed up to the group's car and said they needed to talk to this homeless man before they left. So the group got out of the car and the man was holding a chocolate Labrador puppy with him. He told the group that a friend of his gave him this puppy. However, because he was homeless he said he couldn't take care of the puppy and that it would have to live on the streets and would probably die. He told our group that they had to take this dog.
After the group was leaving the Stewpot, it just so happened that they were scheduled to stop at the Pulaski County Humane Society, where they were going to take the sheltered dogs out for walks and give them some love and attention. So, they took the puppy from that man and traveled to the Humane Society. When they arrived, the person at the front counter said (somewhat sarcastically), "The church group is here AND they have a dog." At first, they said they couldn't take the pup, but then after double-checking, in a 300-cage dog kennel, they had one spot open for the young lab. On the way to the shelter, the youth named the puppy "Freedom" because he was now free to go to a good home.

Doesn't God work in amazing and wonderful ways? The schedule for this trip had been planned months in advance. Who would guess that on the day when a youth group from Texas is serving lunch at a soup kitchen in Arkansas that a homeless man would come to them holding a puppy to be rescued and it just so happened that they were on their way to a humane society where there was one spot open for that dog. Who would have guessed?

God is good - All the time.
And all the time - God is good!

We give you thanks, O God as You weave and
shape our lives so that Your will may be donel
We pray for Freedom and all animals who give us
such joy and love. In Christ's Name.
Amen.

The Rev. Jeremy Wilhelmi
Assistant Pastor for Youth and Family Ministry