Oh, What A Night!

Hello, friends!

First of all, a shout out to "Papa" John Leong because I'm sure he's the only one who got the the title of this blog. (That man sure does love his Jersey Boys...)

Anyway, this post isn't about December 1963, but rather September 2016, particularly September 2, 2016, when ICF held it's first ever English Club! Meg may be guest posting about this later but I wanted to give you a taste of what I saw from my perspective.

The plan was to combine what international students are always in favor of (English practice) with something that college students are always in favor of (free food) with something that ICF is always in favor of (studying the Bible in order to discover Jesus). English Club at 6, followed by Dinner (7) & Discovery (8). It's a good plan. Check that, it's a great plan. It just has a lot of moving parts.

I've said this before (although I can't find the exact post), that one of my favorite things to do is actually run logistics during events, particularly for ICF. I figure, I'm good at doing the small tasks, like taking out the trash, refilling the water jugs, and things like that, which allow folk who are more gifted at networking, having conversations, and generally connecting to people (read: my wife) to do their thing. At the end of the day, everybody wins! My job for Friday was going to be in that sweet spot with a twist: I was going to be running Ezra duty.

We decided that Ezra was going to join the ICF group for English Club/D&D number one because 1) it would be fun 2) he attracts lots of people and 3) while watching Ezra is a full time proposition, it would still allow me to be present to help as needed. Ezra and I got there a little bit before 6 and immediately things started to go off the rails in the best way possible.

6pm rolled around and there were a few people in the room, including volunteers. It was a small crowd for sure and I figured that more folk would be there. I just didn't expect to see the train of people entering never end. While I'm simultaneously watching Ezra go up and down the stairs in Memorial Union, I'm also seeing person after person come up for English Club. A few people became more, which quickly became more, then even more. It was at that point that I was commissioned with a very important task; I needed to order some pizzas because we didn't have enough food.

Now, at this point, I'm trying to keep my son from killing himself by going headfirst down a flight of stairs while also trying to order pizzas. Thankfully, there was a student who was there to help watch Ezra and the pizzas got ordered. The problem was that by the time the pizzas got there, the room was packed and we needed to make another order.

Mizzou has multiple pizza joints in town (as you would expect from a college town) but one that I often frequent is the Domino's on 9th because they usually have "hot and ready" medium pizzas that you can pick up quickly if you're in a hurry. I'd made the first order to Papa John's because we had plenty of time but for my second trip we were going to need pizzas faster so I literally ran to Domino's.

They didn't have any pizzas ready to go...

So, I place and order and wait for what seems like an eternity (probably only 15 minutes or so) then run back to see that dinner was in full swing. I plop down the pizzas and realize, it's 7:40 and Ezra, who is currently being watched by the whole group, needs to get home. I scoop up the little guy, much to his chagrin since he was having so much fun, get him home, give him a bath, get him to bed, and then attempt to decompress a little.

I'm not actually entirely sure of everything that happened during the "Discovery" part of the English Club/D&D night. I went to bed around 10:30, before Meg came home. I heard she preached the Gospel and then they got ice cream. Those sound like a good pair, to me. =0).

Friends, it was a crazy night but a total blessing. Running out of food because you have more people come than you'd anticipated is always a good problem to have in our line of work. To our financial ministry partners, thank you for all of your support and partnership. You bought those pizzas to make sure that we had enough.

Could you please pray for ICF and the English Club? Week 1 was so great but Week 2 is really when you figure out how big your group is going to be. That's when the folk who aren't just "checking things out" come back and you can start to get into a rhythm. Pray for good follow up, that students will continue to be engaged, and that the non-Christian students who come just to practice their English will discover Jesus in the process.

Have an excellent day!

~Adam