An Unexpected Blessing

Last week, Sherron and I, along with Chad and Amber Scarbro and Derek and Kristin Duvall spent several days in New York City serving the homeless with the New York School of Urban Ministry. Each year, NYSUM conducts a Thanksgiving event called Operation Drumstick. Church groups from around the country come to help do street ministry to the homeless and to serve them a Thanksgiving meal. The goal for this trip was to determine if Operation Drumstick might provide some of the youth families of First Baptist an opportunity to go on mission together next year. While our team had some amazing experiences serving on the streets of New York, I wanted to share an unexpected blessing that God chose to bestow upon our team.

On the very first morning, as I sat in an alcove on the third floor of NYSUM headquarters having a quite time, a man who looked to be in his early forties stopped to say hello. The man’s name was Brad Wos. Come to find out, Brad is a PCA (Presbyterian Church in America) missionary. He and his family serve in an area near Cape Town South Africa but are in the US on home assignment in St Louis. During our conversation, Brad shared with me that he and his 16 year-old son Andrew had come to New York for a few days to do street evangelism together.

Imagine that, a dad actually taking his son to a big city to show him how to share the Gospel with strangers! Could it be that Brad takes his God-given responsibility to train up his son seriously? Apparently, he really does see himself as Andrew’s primary spiritual role model and looks for ways to teach his son how to express his faith.

Some might be thinking that since Brad is a missionary, he is of a different breed. He is one of God’s called out ones and should be expected to do that type thing. Remember, this family is on home assignment and will be going back to South Africa soon. They are away from their typical area of ministry so, it would certainly be easy for them to chill out in St. Louis and take it easy for a while. Instead, Brad took his son to New York City to witness to people on the street. He is no super-Christian he is just an example of a “normal” Christian father. Oh, that God would give us a wealth of Brads here at FBC!

The team went to NYSUM to seek an opportunity for our parents to model serving and evangelism for their children and God, in His goodness, gave us a living example. I hope this unexpected blessing we received will bless you as well and, maybe even challenge those of you that are parents.