The time is approaching when Ana and I will board the plane for South Korea. Nothing is making that more obvious to me at this point than the farewells I have gotten from my church community. Final conversations around golf games, dinners and church programs help both pastor and congregation come to terms with the departure. At my farewell service on Sunday, as I expected, a few people took the opportunity to share some of their memories of my time at the church. These tributes were mostly touching, but there were a few awkward/embarassing moments when stories that I had forgotten, or hoped that others had forgotten, were told to the congregation so that a laugh could be had at my expense. I didn’t get a chance to redeem myself by clarifying the context of the story, so I thought I would do that on my blog.
Story #1 - “Remember when Will locked us in a room by putting that chair in front of the door …”
This story made me sound like I had trapped them in there against their wishes, preventing them from accessing the bathroom etc. The reality was that it was well after 1am, and they were making a lot of noise after curfew. I had told them to go to bed and turn off the lights, but knowing they might want to sneak out after I had fallen asleep, I but a big chair that could be moved but would make a lot of noise, which would wake me up. That type of booby trap got me lots of extra sleep from peace of mind it gave me. A well placed pile of pop cans and tin garbage bins were also quite effective for the task.
Story #2 - “Remeber when Will got married and made us cater his wedding …”
Our wedding guests may remember a group of beautiful and carming young people serving food at the wedding. That was my youth group. Like most couples around wedding planning we struggled to draw the line between friends we invite and friends we don’t invite. My position at the church made this extra difficult. My solution was to only invite church people to the reception if they were interested in helping serve or prepare food. Cheap? Maybe. Inclusive? Absolutely.
Story #3 - “Remember when Will lit his face on fire … “
On a young adult camping trip, I designated myself as the lighter of camp stoves. After a few successful uses, I may have let my guard down and not followed the lighting regiment entirely. As a result, some more gas leaked out than I needed, and a large flame shot up from the stove when I put my match in it. The flame was so big and hot that the girl standing five feet away jumped out of the way because of the heat of it. I had been in similar situations before, so I just closed my eyes and waited for the heat to stop, which it quickly did, and adjusted the dials to regulate the now regular sized flame. They all gasped at my ordeal and gawked at my singed beard and eyebrow hairs. I really think that story got blown out of proportion, especially when Ana arrived later that same day and quickly joined the chorus of “you should be more careful” that I had already been hearing.
Maybe next I’ll share a few stories that weren’t repeated at the farewell service but would have been equally interesting.