Check out some pictures from the weekend: NLCF’S 25-Year Reunion Weekend
Whew! What a weekend we had!
First of all, our staff and a bunch of our leaders did an AMAZING job pulling this off. If you were blessed by the weekend, when you get a chance, thank them!
Now to the matter at hand. The first thing to mention is that when you do a reunion and a retreat together, you can’t really do either one in as focused a manner as you could if you did them separately. We knew that, but we were going for something different. We weren’t sure it would work, but we knew where God wanted us to aim.
We wanted to feel like what we are, a family. Multiple generations, at many different points in life to be sure, but family nonetheless. We wanted it to feel like a family coming together for a holiday. That desire guided the entire weekend’s planning. Friday night started well, everyone was having a good time, but I’m not sure we had that feeling just yet. I will tell you when I think it happened. We had a moment and things were different from there on.
It was Saturday, we had just finished the Olympics, and my team had stolen the First Place Golden Boot (then had given it back to the team that had earned it). After lunch, we asked Chris and Julie Massie to share their struggles in being able to get their two adopted kids out of the Congo, and we prayed for them. That is when it happened.
At that point, the age differences melted away; the graduating year stopped mattering. We prayed for two people just trying to bring their kids home. Boom, family. The rest was different. It seems so right that this weekend that had been so heavily prayed over would get to the point we had prayed it would get to in a moment of prayer and vulnerability. It just seems, well, right.
I won’t forget that weekend and I think that is true for most of us. For those that were here, thank you for taking the time, money and inconvenience to be with us. It is always easier to just not come to things like this, but we need things like this. Things that remind us that the world we stare at every day is not the only real world and not even the most real one. For those of you who couldn’t make it, you were missed and we are saving a chair for you at the next one.
~ Jim