Friendships Ch. 06

"Mr. Jacob considers that God gave us those toys to comfort us; what better place to bring God's gift than into His house. The 'Bear family' has grown a lot since then. Six people have gotten one because of a loss of a loved one.

"That carriage at church is not to pray to, that is 'Beauty's' royal carriage she got for a Christmas present. Miss Sarah thought it would be safer there."

Francine called her mother that night, "Mama, I went to that church today. I couldn't have been more wrong about them. They were very welcoming. They gave me a piece of paper with all the notes about the sermon and all the scripture references. I could have never kept up with all of them.

"It was communion today, so I naturally went down front. Instead of me being the only one there, the whole church came down. Molly explained a lot of things to me, but when she said, 'God works on a personal level, that is why I became a Christian,' I couldn't agree more. Mine was just a simple prayer of faith, but the best decision I will ever make."

"Remember child; they do not mind readers. At this very moment, they are probably making a list of Catholic churches for you to visit."

Indeed, they were.

Dawn's inquiry, just likes Sarah's went like this:

"Hello Father, I am calling on behalf of a lifelong French Catholic. I would like to get some information to help us in our search.

"How many scripture references do you cite in a service? Do you have a Bible reading?"

The priest said, "As many as I need."

Dawn said, "I will take it that is a 'No' on both counts.

"How about prayer? Do you address the needs of your flock on Sunday? Do you have someone there for a personal conference? Do you have prayer warriors for emergency prayers? Do you have any corporate prayer of any kind?"

"To my shame we don't."

The priest was enraged with himself. He called all his fellow priests to breakfast at 7:00 AM at the normal place.

"I got a call yesterday about a woman trying to help a friend get into one of our Catholic churches. The questions were so simple, basic and essential. If I was to judge my church based on her questions, I don't think I would ever come back. The friend is a lifelong Catholic; she knows what it is to be in a good and a bad church.

"The only place around here that doesn't have a Catholic church in Northfield. I propose an inter-faith road trip."

The next Sunday, the priest started his service saying, "I have a confession to make. The other day someone called me to ask some questions to see if her friend could find a good Catholic church to attend. She didn't ask very many questions, but she didn't have to.

"She asked, 'Do we had any Bible readings or any scripture with our homilies?'

"What about prayer, do you tell your flock about any of its needs? Do you have anyone to have personal contact? Do you have a prayer chain that goes out to all your prayer warriors for emergency prayers? How about corporate prayer?"

"I had to say 'No.'

"Scripture and prayer are essential?

"So next week the homily will not be here. We are going to meet here at 10:00 AM with the other five churches, then we can get organized and make it for Northfield's 11:00 AM service. I want to pack the rafters with people. The more feedback we get, the better our church can be. I fear they will pass all of those questions and then some."

The church was packed. Many of Mr. Jacob's parishioners gave up their seats for their Catholic friends. Many of the children rested on their Dad's shoulders (Mr. David had Amy).

Mr. Jacob said, "I want to acknowledge our Catholic servants in Christ. We are in the middle of a series, so I gave the ushers copies of the other week's bullet points. Let your priest know if you want copies so we can coordinate it with my office.

"If you wish, pick up our business card; the phone numbers are twenty-four-hour numbers. If you need to talk at 3:00 AM, you call at 3:00 AM. Simple as that."

Except for the length of the service, everything was positive. Those who studied the sheets understood the text better.

Several families took their priests words to heart. Now that their church had the new goals it would take a long time to incorporate everything.

Four families, all great friends, picked out houses all next to each other in town, all four or five-bedroom houses. They may be going to a Protestant church, but they were going to a great Bible-based Christian church.

Mayor Jones was showing Doc Brown his map. "Donald, there are plenty of kids in these six cities to build up our school system. They are just five to ten minutes too far out and our teachers, for the most part, are all untested. I feel like I am on my first job interview."

Doc Brown picked up the Mayor's ruler and made straight lines between the towns and Northfield. Then he took the Mayor's makeshift compass and drew a few arcs crossing the straight lines. Then he drew a straight line from the far-right city to the far-left city. Then he drew a rectangle in the middle.

"Mr. Mayor, you are thinking about this backward. Traffic is practically nil around here. Are there buildings around this rectangle that we could use for classes?

"How long do you think a busload of teachers would take to make it there? Science classes are about the only classes that need extra supplies."

The Mayor said, "Very clever; you found out where the center was of all the cities. They must have libraries that have extra rooms and other public areas we can turn into classes."

Doc Brown said, "On Saturdays, we can use the ranch for teaching just about any age."

"Some may even move if they deem the teachers are of high quality, maybe in just a year they would move here."

An ambitious eleventh grader came up to Ceres and said, "I want to apply for the job opening you have."

Ceres said, "We have no job openings."

"With all due respect Miss Ceres, I want your job. I still need to graduate, but I can work for you before that, and you will see I deserve the position. I should be able to get some college classmates for supervisors then hire sixth to eighth graders for workers. It will take them ten years to graduate and the children will take twenty years. If we set up the farm side, Miss Molly can concentrate on the ranch side.

"Let's face it; Daisy is already grooming Amy to be the next vet when Doc Brown retires or cuts back on his workload. It would be her dream job, even if she does need to put her arms up a mare's backside.

"As time goes on, the age difference will shrink making a constant flow of workers."

As Amy was helping Daisy at the clinic one day, she said, "Amy, I would like to ask a double favor of you. First, I have you helping me at the clinic so you will be a vet when Doc Brown retires. There is a thirty-year difference between us when you become a vet. I would like you to ask a freshman in college to also become a vet so you can be a team for forty-five years; I will still be here for a while."

"Dr. Daisy, I like working with the animals, and I think being a vet would be an excellent job for me. I guess getting someone my age would make sense and do it every ten years or so. With three vets, this place could take off."

Mr. Jacob set up a breakfast meeting with the priest. "As you know, some of your members have started to come to my church. This town has had too many divisions over the years. We can't allow a religious division.

"Let me tell you a little bit about myself. When my daughter was fourteen, her Mom got caught up in a tornado and ended up impaled on a telephone pole. It was slow and painful. Just before I brought my daughter here for classes, I married Noel.

"She was highly in favor of the marriage. A few months earlier I graduated from seminary. On the night after we arrived here to start her classes, my daughter called to tell me she was coming home from dinner and would be here soon. The flood started between then and when she ended up in the river. The Mayor fenced off 100 feet on either side of the river, except at the dam, and deemed it sacred ground.

"This is a magical town, and it draws people who need to start over again. What I want to propose is to have one Protestant service and one Catholic service done by a priest old enough to be respected, but young enough to relate to the college and young couples.

"I would ask you to think about asking people if they want to be a prayer warrior out there and get e-mail addresses and send out a mass combined six church prayer lists to those people.

"He can have his pick of office space. I work mainly from home and do counseling with my wife, Noel. Sometimes the kids are so upset we let them sleep over, and we pray for them as they do so. Noel is a better counselor than I am; she can talk to people better.

"We have to assume that God wants any given person who decides to enter our church, believer or non-believer. If an Islamic person wants to come in and learn about our faith, knowing it could be a death sentence if he converts; we need to let him learn and make up his mind."

The priest said, "Agreed," then they parted ways.