When our family's juggling and illusion ministry is booked to share our program at the Teen Challenge girls' home in Fitchburg, Massachusetts, we invariably ask my brother, David, if we can spend the weekend at his house, as he and his family live an hour away from that particular venue. So, when we scheduled with TC Fitchburg for Saturday, March 15, we again scheduled a visit with them. As is also often the case, David scheduled us to do a show for his church in Amherst, New Hampshire. He also invited our other three brothers over to his house that Saturday.
Well, as we were taught when we did a mission trip to Juarez, Mexico years ago, in ministry, the "F-Word" is "flexible". First, Teen Challenge contacted us and asked if we could change our show to Sunday evening. Then a graduate of my wife's adult education program gave her a set of free passes to Attitash Mountain ski area. Perfect, we thought. Since we'll be traveling back late on Sunday, we'll take a personal day on Monday, allow our 12 year old, Rose, to plat hooky, and use the passes on Monday. It was all making sense.
Saturday was a great day of catching up among the five Hagerstrom brothers and their families. It was the first time in seven years we were all in the same place at the same time. To make the day even better, it was the day before my brother Jim's birthday, so we celebrated with him.
When Sunday morning came, though, it was time to practice our flexibility again. I woke up with a miserable stomach bug. I was able to do the show at the Amherst UCC as scheduled, but even the slightest bit of juggling winded me. Thank God for Rose, who did a lot of the show that morning. She did great. Then, upon returning to David's house, I felt no better, so I got in touch with the director of Teen Challenge. She said, "Do NOT come here with that bug. We've just gotten it out of the house a few days ago, and we don't want it back." So we headed home early.
On the trip back to Maine, I wondered out loud, "Why did it turn out like this. The whole reason we originally went was to do the TC show. The whole reason we took personal days was because we'd be getting home late." My wife, Sue, in her wonderful wisdom said, "Obviously, the real reason we went was to celebrate Jim's birthday. The Teen Challenge show was just the catalyst for the brothers to come together." Made sense to me.
Of course, now we had cleared our schedule for a day of skiing on Monday, and we had the free passes. I woke up feeling completely better, so we went ahead with our family day as planned. Rose and I are fairly accomplished recreational cross-country skiers, but have never skied downhill. The last time Sue skied downhill was in college in the mid 1980's, so we were a group of novices. The folks at the mountain were very helpful, and we all got some practice in on the "bunny" slope. Who cares that the mean age of the bunny slope crowd was about five years old! Finally, after lunch, we decided it was time to try the easiest actual ski trail. What a difference! Suddenly we were on the side of an actual mountain, and the people around us were real skiers. It all came back to Sue very quickly, but Rose and I looked more like the old Walt Disney cartoon in which Goofy participates in the Olympics. We made it down the slope, but decide a little more practice was in order. My bruised ego was comforted a little in that there were now three other adults on the "bunny" slope, too, every bit as clumsy as me.
We returned home that evening tired, cold, but very happy with many memories of a great family day on the mountain to follow up on a great family weekend in New Hampshire. And to think, it all started because of a show that we ended up needing to reschedule.