Sunday Reflections - World Changers

Our pastor is currently in the middle of a series of messages called, "World Changers." He's challenging us to take seriously the scriptural message to 'love our neighbors.' He's expanding the horizon of our neighborhood to include the whole world. We have always been a mission-minded church, but we will probably expand that in 2009.

Today his example of a world changer was Mother Teresa. She's definitely a good example of how one person can truly change the world.

But his message has also included the fact that each of us can also change our 'world' - our families, our friends, those we work with, our neighbors, etc.

I've been thinking most of this afternoon on who do I know who I truly consider to be world changers - people who are changing those around them. There are several I could name, but there is one family that stands out for me.

Max and Michelle Wade and their kids are truly world changers. They have taken a 22 acre patch of desert and changed it into Galloping Grace Youth Ranch. In it's first season which wasn't even a full one - it started in June and ran until Thanksgiving - they touched thousands of people.

Naturally, there are the kids who have come to the ranch to be exposed to horses. It has been my joy to be there several times when you see a child go from a reserved and, in a few cases, fearful child around a horse to a kid who is having a ball on that same horse.

I've seen troubled girls drop their 'street' pose and become happy teenagers after a couple of hours of being at Galloping Grace.

But, it's not just the kids - it's also the volunteers who are changed. Betty and I and many others have had our lives changed by becoming friends and co-workers with Max and Michelle.

I know that Max and Michelle give all the glory to God for what has happened at Galloping Grace and what will happen in the future. And that's the way it should be. But, it takes a willing heart that surrenders itself to God for Him to be able to work as he has.

Thank you Max, Michelle, Brooke, Garrett, Claire, and Grant for being obedient to God to allow Him to make you world changers.

Today is December 14 and if today is your Birthday then you share your day with: General Jimmy Doolittle (WWII hero), Patty Duke (actress), Lee Remick (actress, "Anatomy of a Murder"), Charlie Rich (country singer), Morey Amsterdam (comedian, "The Dick Van Dyke Show"), Spike Jones (bandleader of a weird band), and Nostradamus (1500s French poet who some claim foretold the future - bunk in my opinion).

On this day in 1799 the first president of the United States, George Washington, died at his Mount Vernon home at age 67. In 1819 Alabama joined the Union as the 22nd state. In 1911 Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen became the first man to reach the South Pole, beating out an expedition led by Robert F. Scott. In 1934 the first steam-driven locomotive, nicknamed the "Commodore Vanderbilt", was introduced by the New York Central Railroad. And in 1985 Wilma Mankiller became the first woman to lead a major American Indian tribe as she took office as principal chief of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma.