October 2024 – Jerry Lout ⚬ Writer ⚬ Speaker ⚬ Mobilizer

October 31, 2024October 30, 2024

Wardrobe Check

Family.

Few ‘stand-alone’ words carry greater force in stirring emotions. For some, all manner of feelings can lie poised to erupt just at the mention of “family life”. A lot of them are feelings most of us know, springing as they do from memories out of our past. Stirring emotions ranging from cozy and warm to jagged and piercing, depending upon relationships enjoyed. Or not enjoyed.

While writing this, fresh news came of the death of a dear friend’s father. My friend, Amit – receiving word of his dad suddenly falling ill bought air tickets. He reached his native India from the U.S. shortly before the patriarch’s passing. The father and son shared a close bond. Reaching the homeland to console his mother, Amit now joins her in the mourning.

Family ties run deep. Few narratives in all the world’s literature bring the truth home so powerfully as Jesus’ story of the lost (prodigal) son. And it is the Luke 15 parable – introduced, contemplated and discussed – that rocked the world of a long parade of students. The routine had grown as predictable as the Rocky Mountain snows for the diverse groups, day after day and year after year, each morning just after breakfast. Bear Trap’s seven or eight Family Groups – each comprised of eight or so sharp college students of varying nationalities – combed through the passage with keen interest. Outright astonishment met most of them in the end, as the narrative portrayed outrageous selfishness colliding head-on with (a father’s) outrageous affection.

Campus ministers facilitating the group discussions were struck by notable reactions by the internationals. Hardly ever was there a student whose conscience was stung over the sin of brazen hedonism and wasteful living characterized by the story’s younger brother. However, many of these scholars from abroad (well-behaved, performance-focused) resonated with the conflicting struggles of the elder sibling. He’s the one who kept his nose clean, yet carried just as much ‘heart-distance’ toward the father as did the scandalous kid brother.

in Family Group time we were brought to wrestle with matters of the heart. Discovering in the process that we fractured souls, all of us, come draped in a collection of ill-fitting garments of our own tailoring.

October 24, 2024

Bear Trap

Apart from a moment or two navigating Mt. Kilimanjaro’s steeps, it was the nearest I have come to sliding off a mountain.

Heavy snows had fallen across the Rockies. The drivers of the 15-passenger vans that our team had filled with Christmas-break college students strained to maneuver steep, slippery terrain. Our destination, Bear Trap Ranch, lay West of Colorado Springs at an elevation of nine thousand feet.

Intervarsity Christian Fellowship had purchased the property decades earlier, transforming it over time into the perfect mountain retreat venue. Bear Trap Ranch played host every winter season to the International Student New Year’s Houseparty.

Keenly-atuned drivers maneuvered the vans up the snow-laden (Old Stage) Road leading to Bear Trap, successfully averting disaster.

A handful of slopes surrounded the Ranch, each boasting its own distinctive peak. These kept watch over the campground below.

Year after year through a treasured week, bookended by Christmas and New Year’s Day, scores of internationals and their respective campus sponsors got the familiar, wide-armed welcome from IVCF staff and campsite workers.

By weeks’ end, the energies of our Tulsa group along with all the others, spanning schools from Nebraska to Texas, were gloriously spent. Broomball on ice, indoor square dance, New Year’s talent show, With scrumptious dining at every meal, with cross country skiing and coffee-time chats, every social interchange proved to claim a piece of the student’s souls.

But a crowning element, like strong glue bridging the divide – of culture, language, personality – percolated upward and outward from Day One. Starting every morning at 9:00.

Family Group.

October 17, 2024October 17, 2024

A Shared Humanity

Lifting the serving bowl and its beefy/spicy contents up for all to admire, the host rendered the verdict, “And, the winner IS. . .”

Through every season we were learning that each day can open a new place in our hearts, a place where we can welcome new friends and celebrate more fully our shared humanity*

Whether the Autumn Chili cookoff (like this one marked by bursts of – “Wow, who brought this ?!”) – or the Summer road trip to old town Har-ber Village at Grand Lake or the Hayride/ songfest/bonfire and s’mores treat at Sonrise Ranch outside Owasso, every outing seemed to pulse with adventure.

The student ministry subscribed to value-centered priorities. Like fostering friendships. Then, where possible, nurturing them.

Our volunteer teams hosted students from far-away lands whose domestic mealtime had never ever featured chili; young adults whose tastebuds would never think of savoring an odd mini-sandwich stacked with marshmello, Hershey chocolate and graham cracker.

As for Har-ber Village, few Americans had themselves ever encountered – except through library books or a Google Search – the spellbinding world of a reconstructed 19^th century village.

Nor did road trips end with a screeching halt at the state line. Missouri, Texas, Arkansas – even Colorado and California – unveiled before us their varied treasures, from the quaint to the spectacular.

As for the chili cookoff that evening at Beau and Mary Ann’s home, our student guests were deputized taste-test-judges. The Blue Ribbon chili pick of the night fell to an iconic burger enterprise from around the corner, Wendy’s!

October 10, 2024October 9, 2024

Have A Chair

Smiling, the student welcomed me into his apartment. He had come a week or so earlier to start his first semester of studies in this new land.

“I am sorry”, he began – self-conscious and embarrassed – “I do not have a comfortable chair for you”.

Nodding my thanks as he gestured to the straight-backed chair, I took in the sparse surroundings. My goodness, I thought, even though this is a fine campus apartment, it’s virtually unfurnished. Only a couple sticks of furniture rested on the pristine carpeting spread throughout.

That surprise ‘aha moment’ was followed by more of the same as I made my rounds to welcome newly arrived students over the coming days. It left me both astonished and bewildered. What could be done to alter this scenario? The question persisted.

How does a newcomer on a tight budget – a young person virtually unknown by anyone inside the host country – tackle the task of furniture shopping in this place? The hurdles grew in number

No vehicle of their own (much less a driver’s license)
No friend with a pickup
Unaware of the uniquely American tradition called a ‘garage sale’
The list grows

There is a God in heaven. So goes the quote.

Drawing on what imagination capital we could muster, our ragtag team landed on a purely experimental game plan and pinned a name to it. From then til now ICO’s annual Furniture Fest has kept gathering wind in her sails.

What’s more (in the perky language of an ancient TV game show), The Price is Right.

October 3, 2024October 2, 2024

Outrageous

“In your religion, do you believe God could forgive him?”

The questioner’s face betrayed an intense curiosity. She wanted my answer. The surname of the person in question was bin Laden.

Shortly after the September 11 attack, American intelligence agencies identified lead players responsible for the terrorist carnage. The assault here on American soil – the most brazen and vicious since Pearl Harbor (1941) – guaranteed the enshrinement of another date to “live in infamy”. The principal schemer and mastermind was revealed to the public and in a matter of hours the name Osama Bin Laden became synonymous among many with unspeakable evil.

The young woman from the Far East, whose husband was pursuing an engineering degree at our campus, had directed the question my way amidst an informal visit on life and faith. Her knowledge of Biblical Christianity – its foremost tenet being sacrificial love – was foreign to her mind and she drove the question home.

Can God forgive the bin Ladens of the world?

I responded in a quiet tone. ‘Yes’. God’s mercy was somehow big enough to cover even an evil such as this. “If he were to confess and turn from his sin, yes he would find pardon”, I responded, hoping my voice carried a conviction I did not deeply feel.

The student spouse wouldn’t buy it, “No”, she replied, “such a wrong like this done by someone cannot be forgiven!” She was not to be persuaded otherwise. Not today, perhaps not at all.

For my own part, I frankly entertained a subtle wish in the moment that it might not be true, that even divine pardon had its limitations. As with the Prophet Jonah in the Old Testament with his condemning heart posture toward the barbaric city of Nineveh and its inhabitants, I could, at least momentarily, want God’s wrath directed toward particular elements of evildoers.

But then, where would that leave me and the rest of humanity. I knew, at least in my mind, the answer. Forgiveness, indeed full pardon, extends to any and all presenting themselves in contrite repentance. Some label such mercy as outrageous. And so it likely is.

“The wages of sin is death but the free gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. . . Christ suffered for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God.”*