New Look: I had to go with a new look for the old blog. It's not that I didn't like the old one, quite the contrary but I was having a permanent problem with the archiving and what good is a blog if you can't go back and read it. So I went with the new look...same content and just a new kind of ugly.

Clap: Richard and Elisa Brown told a story last week that is deserving of being published in books. Since I can't do that I thought at least I can put it on my blog!

They were on vacation at their parent's house in Argentina along with Elisa's Sister's family. So in all there were many kids and they decided to go for ice cream into the city. The streets happened to be crowded, unusually crowded so crowded in fact that once the group of adults and children go inside the ice cream shop they realize that they will never make it out of the same door they came in due to the crowds. Luckily there was a side alley that they group made it out of and the alley was filled with stores and shops. After window shopping for about and hour Elisa counted children and instead of counting 9 she only counted 8. She counted again and then realized that it was her little 3 year old girl that was missing. They quickly retraced their steps in the stores they had visited.

They went back to the ice cream shop and asked if the owner had see the little girl, he hadn't. The father then ran outside. His mind is racing, he is trying not to think about what happens when a child gets abducted but his mind keeps going there. He runs and runs just calling his daughters name, louder and louder. He pushes through the crowd frantically searching, just calling and calling. Suddenly he hears clapping. He thinks it odd that such a large crowd is clapping so he takes notice. He follows the clapping and in the center of a circle of clapping adults is his daughter. In Argentina when a child gets seperated from their parents adults gather around the child and clap to draw attention to the child. They clap and clap until the child and parent's are reunited.

I think that's what a pastor does. We surround our students, our friends, our family and those we serve as shepherd. We clap and clap and clap because we want them reunited with their heavenly father. Clap loud and clap long!