I am still basking in the glow of last night’s, Tuesday 8/1, National Night Out celebration hosted by St Pascal’s. We had a good turnout despite the threat of rain and eventual raindrops. It was wonderful to meet so many neighbors from our community and spend some time getting to know them. To see so many St Pascal’s parishioners in attendance mixing and engaging our guests was a very special sight to behold, thank you!
Of course, a very special event was a visit from the St Paul Fire Department’s ladder truck. Kids young and old gathered around to see the truck and talk to the fire personnel. In my conversation with the fire captain of the truck, he mentioned how much they enjoy the National Night Out and the chance it gives them to interact with people in a non-emergency situation. He then mentioned that he thought National Night Out should be more than once a year to facilitate getting people together in a fun atmosphere. That really struck me and got me thinking of how the Lutheran Church of Peace on Century Avenue south of Interstate 94 hosts what they call Neighbor Nights on Wednesday evenings during June and July. Maybe we could consider hosting some neighbor nights at St Pascal’s a few more times a year?
There were so many special conversations during the night, and I will share a couple. The first was my time spent eating dinner at a table of young adults from a sober house in our area. It was good to hear of their genuine desire to overcome their addictions and their honesty about how hard it is and their slips. I was able to tell them about our youngest son’s journey in battling addiction and give them hope that despite his long journey with many setbacks that was similar to theirs he is now doing very well the last 5 years with a good job and supporting himself. The other was a wonderful conversation with a parishioner’s father who was in town from California visiting. We discussed the places we both had visited and lived in California. The highlight of our conversation was listening to him talk about his recent visit to Lourdes and how prayerfully special it was there. The Holy Spirit was definitely roaming and moving last night.
Many thanks to so many of you that worked hard to put this event on and for your Christ-like welcome to all who attended our third National Night Out. I know that everyone I talked to was having a fun time and were very appreciative of our hosting this night for the neighborhood.
What about God Providing? Over the last two years of volunteering at Progressive Baptist’s food shelf, I have been exposed to a community that has a very deep trust in God’s ability to provide. There have been so many times that the shelves, refrigerators, and freezers have been bare only to have Second Harvest, KFC, Trader Joe's, Whole Foods, or some other organization bring extra food that week. It happens so often that I have simply accepted that God will provide and do not worry about it. This has been a humble reminder to me to trust God and not try to control and do everything on my own, which is good since that never seems to work out very well anyway.
A couple of nights before our National Night Out celebration a truck showed up in the middle of the night in the office area parking lot of the Church and dropped off a package. There was a note that said it was a large tent and they thought the Church could use it. The tent was too hard for them to set up and use, but it should be valuable to us. As you can see in the photo above, it was a large pop-up tent that indeed was very useful, especially given the little bit of rain we had. Again, I was overwhelmed to see how God provides!
Telling Rev Paul about the tent while working at Progressive today, we discussed how God does indeed provide. That these occurrences for us as people of faith are not simply coincidences but events that reveal to us God is alive and working in our world and opens our eyes more and more to God's presence all around us. We both felt that this tent was a sign of God’s blessing on the wonderful ministry being done here at St Pascal’s.
Peace, Love, and Blessings
Deacon Richard
Comments
Mary HuettlPosted on 8/03/23
What a wonderful expression of what both the National Night Out and working at Progressive mean to those of us involved. You said it so well. I, too, have learned to trust so much more in "God will provide" through these experiences.
Mary HuettlPosted on 8/03/23
What a wonderful expression of what both the National Night Out and working at Progressive mean to those of us involved. You said it so well. I, too, have learned to trust so much more in "God will provide" through these experiences.