Divine Intervention

For the past week I have been stressing out. Lots of nights waking up around 4am thinking about all the different things to do for the REgifter. The after-show sculpture aspect of the show has been weighing heavy on me. Lots of worry over not getting enough skilled people to volunteer. On Saturday I talked to the leader of this team about how I was considering scaling way back and shifting focus. We have eight million amazing ideas but lack the manpower to execute. I woke up today before the meeting with the after-show core team and told God that I wasn't doing a good job with recruiting effort and that I was done. I told him that if he wanted us to do something that he would have to bring us the right people and direction. I gave up control.

So I told the team my concerns. They shared that they felt the same way. These guys are top notch so they we're working 80 hour weeks and feeling a little overwhelmed. The only one not leaning towards scaling back was Harmony Hensley. She's an unstoppable dreamer. It's why I asked her on the team. Anyways, after a few moments of scale-back talk the team went back to brainstorming new ideas. One in particular required legitimate metal workers to come on board. So I'm sitting there loving the new stuff (it's like crack for me) but thinking the last thing we need is more ideas.

Around 11am the team wanted to see the piles of junk I've acquired. We walked over and ran into a guy (Jeff) who said, "Are you Brad? This your junk?" I laughed and said yeah thinking he heard about it from the complaining student ministry guys. He said, "If you need anyone who can work with metal I have access to all kinds of stuff working for JTM, I can weld, etc. etc." I explained our new idea and asked if he thought he could do it. We showed him a sketch. He said, "Yep. No problem" and that he'd bring an example back in a week to see if like it. I slapped him on his shoulder and told him that he makes me believe in God. Seriously. What are the chances? Jeff the JTM metal worker was flat out a God send.

Meanwhile, Korey (roller coaster designer) was running around all excited about the junk and talking about creating teams that could make robots. Caleb (our 10 year old team member) was helping him gather robot parts and folding newspapers into origami cranes while Abe and I strategized about new, focused team-building efforts. All of us blown away by our encounter with Jeff.

Moral of the story- I gave up control and asked God to step in. The results: Jeff just happened to show up and basically said, "Hey, you know that idea that would be cool but you need someone who can do it... that's me. What's up?" And Korey went from wanting to scale back to creating robot families made of lamp shades, washing machine parts and computer monitors. 10 year old Caleb was in the whole time. But now he's really excited that he and his dad (Paul) are going to make a giant crane using chain link fence. What a day.