This spring the Lord again opened up the opportunity for us to play some music and to do a Gospel chalk art presentation at Mont Saint-Dominique – a Catholic nursing home at which Daddy works. We were amazed at how many people came. The nuns all showed up for the presentation, and even the “curé” (the chaplain) was there. Through the chalk talk, the Gospel was clearly presented. We pray that the Lord would use His Word to convict hearts and draw them to Himself.

Everyone loved seeing Daddy, the beloved doctor, playing music with his children.

A few pictures of the chalk talk…

   We were invited to stay for supper, which we readily accepted. This proved to be an excellent opportunity to interact with both the nuns and the residents, and to begin to get to know a few of them.

    Something I have often wondered when we do Gospel chalk art presentations is why we rarely see much response to the Gospel message. Everyone loves the presentation, but though it often elicits conversation about God, I don’t believe I can say that I actually know anyone who has come to the Lord through it.

    As I pondered this, the Lord opened up two things to me. The first was that God calls us to be faithful, not to see results. “Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.” (I Corinthians 15:58) Our toiling for the Lord is not in vain even though we may never see the results of our labour. God has promised that His Word will not return to Him void, however He has not promised that we, the bearers of that Word, will see Him accomplish that work. His withholding from us the visible encouragement of results necessitates a response of faith on our part. We must trust that He is at work, though we do not always perceive it.

   The other answer came to me through a book I read recently. I share a quote from it:

    “It [the knowledge of the sovereignty of God’s grace] should keep us from being daunted when we find that our evangelistic endeavours meet with no immediate response. God saves in His own time, and we ought not to suppose that He is in such a hurry as we are. We need to remember that we are all children of our age, and the spirit of our age is a spirit of tearing hurry. And it is a pragmatic spirit; it is a spirit that demands quick results. The modern ideal is to achieve more and more by doing less and less. This is the age of the labour-saving device, the efficiency chart, and automation. The attitude which all this breeds is one of impatience towards everything that takes time and demands sustained effort. ours tends to be a slapdash age; we resent spending time doing things thoroughly. This spirit tends to infect our evangelism (not to speak of other departments of our Christianity), and with disastrous results. We are tempted to be in a great hurry with those whom we would win to Christ, and then, when we see no immediate response in them, to become impatient and downcast, and then to lose interest in them, and feel that it is useless to spend more time on them; and so we abandon our efforts forthwith, and let them drop out of our ken. But this is utterly wrong. It is a failure both of love for man and of faith in God.

    “The truth is that the work of evangelizing demands more patience and sheer ‘stickability’, more reserves of persevering love and care, than most of us twentieth-century Christians have at command. It is a work in which quick results are not promised; it is a work, therefore, in which the non-appearance of quick results is no sign of failure; but it is a work in which we cannot hope for success unless we are prepared to persevere with people.”  Evangelism & the Sovereignty of God by J.I. Packer

    We are called to patient labour. “Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting. And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.” Galatians 6:7-9

Each chalk talk takes a lot of preparation.  First, a basic plan is made.  

Then a rough drawing is made.  This is the rough drawing for … a new one!

Finally, we get to the easel and draw it out.  It generally gets a few minor changes after that.  This is the new chalk talk we created.  It is called… well, we don’t exactly have an official name for it yet.  Its main theme is shepherds, starting with the Christmas shepherds (Luke 2).

 Whenever we have some presentations coming up, preparation time comes.  We have to start by finding a day that works for everyone, and when we can have the basement all to ourselves for a few days.  Preparation makes a lot of dust, so we have to evacuate everything and everyone from the basement and cover what cannot be evacuated.  Generally, we do about four to six backgrounds at the same time.  Once the backgrounds are complete, the blacklight image is drawn in.  This has to be done after dark so that we can see what we are doing.  (That’s not hard to achieve at this time of year: the sun sets at 4 PM.)  When all that is complete (generally about two days after the initial setup), everything gets hair-sprayed to keep the picture from rubbing off or smearing during transport. 

 Oh, and then there is one more step.

The cleanup!

 When it actually comes time to do the presentation, we try to arrive about an hour or two earlier than the official beginning time.  This is to leave time to set up when there aren’t too many people around.  It also leaves time for us to deal with technical difficulties, such as light bulbs breaking or simply not working, wire nuts falling off, outlets that don’t seem to work, bolts missing, easel legs being mixed up, and dimmers breaking in the “off” position.  I’ve probably missed a few, but these have all really happened to us.  In case you are wondering, the dimmer wasn’t too hard to fix: all we had to do was open up our control box, undo half a dozen wire nuts, crack the dimmer casing to open it, unscrew the nut holding it together, find the switch, flip it to the “on” position, and then put it all back together!  This is partly why we always try to have someone praying for each presentation we do.  Of course, the main thing for which to pray is that souls would respond to the message of salvation and turn to the Saviour.

Another important part of our team is Nathanael, our sound technician.  He takes care of all the preparation of background music and sees that the speaker can be appropriately amplified so that all can hear the message, even those who may be somewhat hard of hearing.

After dozens (or even hundreds) of hours of preparation, the final presentation may take only 15 to 30 minutes.  We have found, however, that people remember these presentations for years afterwards, and our prayer is that the message may be received and impact lives for eternity.

    What a busy couple of weeks!  After a brief lull in activity around here, the construction has progressed by leaps and bounds.  The shelter over the north basement doors is now completed.  With the exception of gutter installation, there remains little to do outdoors at this point, so most of the work has been indoors: the finishing!  The wainscotting (wood half-way up the walls) went up very rapidly – it was all up and varnished by Wednesday last week.  Thursday and Saturday were days of work on window frames and mouldings.  One of the young men from our Bible study came over to help us out.  Thank you, Ryan, for your excellent work.  We express much gratitude also to Ryan’s family for sharing your skilled worker!

   The whole look of the place has been drastically altered – it is looking more and more like a room instead of a construction zone.  The bathroom at the back of the room is also progressing.  The walls are plastered, the exterior wall on the side of the original house is also dry walled and plastered, and the wooden ceiling is in place.  The pictures speak for themselves…

Some things require extreme precision…

   The question in many minds now is, “How soon will it be all done so that we can move in?!”  A lot still remains to do, however.  The mouldings around the doors as well as the openings into the original house have yet to be finished.  The flooring will be a massive endeavour, and even after that there are the baseboards, etc.  We continue to dream of the day it will all be finished…

   While all this was taking place in the extension, another project was also underway: fixing up the front door.  Though a beautiful wooden door, it is sorely inadequate at keeping out the cold during the winter.  Nathanael took it all apart, put insulating into it, and put it back up.  We shouldn’t have the problem of frost covered screws next winter!

   Construction/renovation was not the only thing going on this past week.  Mommy, Evelyn, Stephen, Sarah, and William worked on cleaning out the 28-year-old chest freezer in the basement.  It was a formidable task to take everything out, sort it all, clean the freezer all out, and put everything back!

   We have not only been busy at home either.  Friday afternoon was spent at our grandparents’ home helping them with clearing out weeds and repainting the balcony.  It was a wonderful team project – even Amy helped!  We loved doing this for them.

   Sunday was a day of ministering to others at the Grace Christian Home for a service with the Godfreys.  Singing hymns, playing a few pieces on our instruments, listening to Mr. Godfrey present many creative ways of sharing the Gospel, and talking with the residents afterwards was such a delight!

   In all this busyness, I pause to consider a thought: What is the purpose in it all?  We can be busy about many things without knowing where we are heading, or precisely on what we are focused.  Is our focus simply to get something done?  The apostle Paul stated in I Corinthians 10:31, “Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.” (emphasis added)  This is to be our focus: the glory of God, seeking to make Him known in all we say or do.

   “And whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him.”  Colossians 3:17

Although we have been alleviated of the duties of scholastic study and supervision, we are by no means free of all duty and work.  Next week, there are string exams and piano exams for most, and much practice has been taking place.  In addition to the regular music practice, there are also the concerts for which to practise.  Last Saturday we performed at the Wales Home, a retirement home in Richmond, about 3/4 of an hour north of us.  It is always a pleasure to play for these people, as they always seem to appreciate every effort, even if the performance doesn’t go as smoothly as we would have liked.  We also have a concert scheduled for the 11th of July in Beebe Plain.  Although all this practice is a lot of work, it is rewarding, as there have been times that our music has opened the door for us to share Christ with some of our listeners.

Last Friday, we had the opportunity of going down to Ayer’s Cliff to watch the performance of the RCMP Musical Ride.  If you have never seen one of their performances, I would strongly recommend you do.  Of course, if you’re not in Canada, that could be a hard thing to achieve.  It is simply unbelievable how careful they are to make sure every person, every lance, and every horse is exactly where they should be at the right time.  The horses even keep step to the music accompaniment, whether they are walking or cantering or somewhere in between.  I believe we all appreciated being there – I certainly did.  This served as a reminder to me of the way God has all things worked out for our good.  Even when we don’t know what is going to happen next in our lives, He has it all worked out such that there are never any mishaps.

The construction is coming along smoothly, though it seems somewhat slow at times.  The siding is pretty much all done, as is the soffit.  Yesterday, the electrician came and did most of the electrical connections, and he will be finishing it this afternoon.  The extension is looking more like a room and less like a construction zone now that there are lights on the ceiling and walls instead of just electrical boxes. 

Matthew 5:14 “Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid.”