Celebrating life, light, and hope!
The past couple of months have been the most sustained and intense that I can remember in a very long time. Erin and I traveled to Uganda & Sudan, held our second East Africa conference, and then came back to help put on the first Lahash banquet. It has felt like every part of me has had to be "on" for a very long time, and I've had to put in intense hours, cry, laugh, plan, dream, coordinate, learn, and come to grips with my limits and the messiness of community and human systems.
And here we are on the other side of it all (well, except for a board meeting this weekend), and I have a chance to breathe in a bit.
The really encouraging part to this whole intense half-year was going to two celebrations within two days of each other. The first was the Portland Rescue Mission banquet. Erin works in HR over at PRM and she is involved in small and large details and I hear of happy moments, intense moments, and issues that come up that we wish weren't a part of in life (including letting people go).
On Thursday we were able to join with a huge crowd of recovering addicts and former members of the homeless population, donors, staff, and volunteers and celebrate the year and the lives that have been changed! Wow, I wish you could have all been there! It's so gratifying to hug someone that has just been through hell and back and see lives being slowly rebuilt with patient and hopeful service. I'm so grateful to all of you PRM friends! Stay strong and may God encourage you each day.
Saturday night Lahash put on our first banquet. I've never helped put on anything this intense before. I would liken it to planning 3 weddings. We all wanted the evening to be pregnant with beauty, holiness, life, light, art, and relationship. And so we tried to think through every detail.
And finally after about a year of dreaming and about 8 months of planning - the night happened. The room suddenly was full of wonderful friends and partners! Casey had put together this movie of the Amazing Grace kids - so beautiful.
And we also showed this movie of Susan Tabia speaking to the Lahash community.
It was so good to celebrate the resurrection of lives, the power of the message of Jesus, the reality of hope, and the reward of communities that live out love for God and love for neighbors.
And here we are on the other side of it all (well, except for a board meeting this weekend), and I have a chance to breathe in a bit.
The really encouraging part to this whole intense half-year was going to two celebrations within two days of each other. The first was the Portland Rescue Mission banquet. Erin works in HR over at PRM and she is involved in small and large details and I hear of happy moments, intense moments, and issues that come up that we wish weren't a part of in life (including letting people go).
On Thursday we were able to join with a huge crowd of recovering addicts and former members of the homeless population, donors, staff, and volunteers and celebrate the year and the lives that have been changed! Wow, I wish you could have all been there! It's so gratifying to hug someone that has just been through hell and back and see lives being slowly rebuilt with patient and hopeful service. I'm so grateful to all of you PRM friends! Stay strong and may God encourage you each day.
Saturday night Lahash put on our first banquet. I've never helped put on anything this intense before. I would liken it to planning 3 weddings. We all wanted the evening to be pregnant with beauty, holiness, life, light, art, and relationship. And so we tried to think through every detail.
And finally after about a year of dreaming and about 8 months of planning - the night happened. The room suddenly was full of wonderful friends and partners! Casey had put together this movie of the Amazing Grace kids - so beautiful.
And we also showed this movie of Susan Tabia speaking to the Lahash community.
It was so good to celebrate the resurrection of lives, the power of the message of Jesus, the reality of hope, and the reward of communities that live out love for God and love for neighbors.
posted by Dan at
10:06 AM
1 Comments:
That PRM video made me cry.
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