They may not need me,
Yet they might;
I'll let my heart be
Just in sight--
Jeremy, fifth from left to right.
Maybe a year and a half ago, while still at our old Church, we received our weekly e-mail from our Pastor. Having seen and heard Jeremy preach, I always just assumed he was our Associate Pastor. I couldn't have been more wrong.
He was really a Pastor-in-training. Jeremy was part of a program offered by The Orchard Network under the leadership of Pastor Colin Smith and the collaboration of my Church (his internship). The Orchard provides the training not only for Pastors, but also for anyone interested in evangelical mission work abroad.
The entire crew (seen above) were in need of financial sponsors. Now, this was the first time I've ever heard of The Orchard. I didn't know anything about them or their work. What made us consider sponsoring Jeremy had to do with two things.
One, even though Jeremy never really knew us, we knew him. We saw him at Church preaching and being active in all Church activities. Two, I remembered when my own Joey was studying and gave up his full time job to go to school. He was a part-time Pastor-in-training in the Children's Church in Farmer City, Illinois. Money was extremely tight and there were many generous members of the congregation that helped out. I wanted to pay it forward with this young man. I wanted to do for him what others had done for my son.
Fast forward to now, an invitation arrives via e-mail to the graduation. Honestly, I was intrigued since I've never been to anything like this before. I'm also glad that I took the time to dress up, wear makeup and put on heels. It was held in the ritzy part of town and majority of the people there were wealthy. You could tell, because the rich have a way of looking rich without being vulgar. They may wear jeans with a polo shirt, but no sneakers there. No, loafers and dress socks, instead.
So I went and I'm glad I did. Each of the graduates came forward, did a small presentation about themselves and what they plan on doing. Two of them went to mission work abroad, one is opening a brand new Church, four are Pastoring at Churches of their selection. Pastor Colin Smith prayed over each graduate separately and over their calling. Afterwards, there was a small cake /coffee reception to mingle.
We want to keep these seven in our prayers as they go forth professing the Word of God.
Have a blessed day everyone.
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