"Coincidental" Happenings?

Today I met a man named Sam Childers. Chances are there aren't too many (if anyone) reading this who know that name. Heck, I didn't until a month or two ago, and honestly I can't remember how I first heard it.

All around the same time a few things happened if I remember right. I saw an obscure movie preview for a flick that got almost no media attention and was almost entirely un-promoted in this country. Then a book showed up on the "other books that might interest you" page on my Amazon.com account and I feel like someone also told me to check this book out. So anyway, I got the book and read it in about two days. The story in those pages caught me in an interesting way. As I read it, something, almost everything, in me wanted to write it off as crazy or inflated or just plain made-up. This is one of those larger then life stories that seems too big to be real. But the guys voice comes through in the words and there was nothing about it that felt like he was trying to convince anyone of this stuff. I didn't feel like he cared one bit if anyone bought it (the story or the book) and that made me think that it must be true and in that case God must be right at the center of it. The next thing I felt was frustrated and sort of conflicted. The story challenged a lot of how I thought about God working in the world. I have had to give a lot of thought to this stuff and I've come to some conclusions and I'm still working on some. However, in an effort to prevent sucking you unwillingly into a meeting of my one man book club, I'm not going to share my thoughts and opinions on the details of this book right now.

So, to carry on with my story: like I said, this all took place a little while back. A few weeks after I finished the book, although some of the questions that it had inspired were still bouncing around somewhere in the vast emptiness of my mind, I had mostly moved on from it and, due to the not so uncommon event of a camp vehicle breakdown 3 hours away, I found myself driving back toward home on a secondary road (also due to a not so uncommon event: the failure of our GPS to locate roads that actually exist). As we headed back a sign that said "Angels of East Africa" caught the corner of my eye. We had completely by accident found the headquarters of the mission started by the man who's memoir had caused some turmoil in my easily unsettled mind. However, due to my complete lack of boldness and fear of meeting new people, I kept right on driving thinking it an odd coincidence and a little perturbed that this thing was somehow haunting me. Needless to say, I wrote it off again. (I'm sure I'm not the only one thinking it so I may as well voice it: I am really slow on the uptake!)

Now this brings us to today. Most of us from the camp have been away at a CCCA gathering (Christian Camp and Conference Association) and were headed home this afternoon. Again, due to GPS confusion, we found ourselves searching for a Starbucks and a way to get on the turnpike and again that sign caught my eye. This time my timidity was overruled by the others in the vehicle and we pulled into the gravel parking lot of this building that looked like it could be a gun shop.  We went in a chatted a little with the people manning the desks and they told us we should stop by the church that this larger-then-life preacher man had started.  So, again despite me, that's what we did. When we got there we were meet by this inevitably really busy man who sat and talked with us for more then a half hour without any indication that we were holding him up from more pressing business or making him late for some undoubtedly important appointment. We talked a lot about the work he's doing and a little about ours and I have no idea why all of this has happened the way it has and I can't even speculate what may come of it someday but it all just leaves me with the feeling that God is doing something and there are whispers of Africa in it and those sounds tend to make my heart start to speed up just a little!

I wanted to tell this story mostly because this blog serves as my journal and, as I've said, helps me process, but also because I'd love some feed back. Check this guy and his story out. Look up Sam Childers or "Machine Gun Preacher" on Youtube or, better yet, read his memoir, Another Mans War, and let me know your thoughts and feelings about it (especially if you happen to be reading this from Uganda or some such place). Pull up a chair and join my book club. The discussion is rather flat and one sided with the current membership at one.