For the second Sunday in a row, we had a show in the little northern Maine town of Easton.  On the 22nd we were in the Baptist church and yesterday, June 29th, we did the service at the Wesleyan church.  This church had been one of many area churches who helped sponsor last August's trip to Paraguay, where we shared the Gospel for two weeks in various settings, so it was a pleasure to get back there and thank them in person.

The show felt a little odd in that my partner, and youngest daughter Rose, was not with us this time.  She is on a two week mission trip through Youth With a Mission's "Joshua Generation", their junior high branch.  YWAM has been around for a long time, and she is with her friend,, Corban.  Also, one of the team leaders is a college student who grew up in our church, so I'm sure she's having a blast.  They will be a week in Boston and a week in New York.

In the past few months, Rose has become a very capable juggler, which means there were several routines that had to be scratched from Sunday's show.  It was all me, working solo.  I opened with "Johnny's Café", my flair bottle and cups and balls routine. (Hear the classic song here:   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hY4qLdiM6GE ) It's a routine I don't do often enough, and it was fun to work it into the show.  The audience was very pleased with everything throughout it all, but they really loved when I had a young boy on stage spin four plates on sticks: one in each hand, one on a mouth stick and one on his head. Like most churches, it was mostly adults, though, so I tried to challenge them to let their lights shine in a world that is often rather dark.

Before we started, the director of the area's Wesleyan camp made a promotional announcement for the start of their season.  I am in northern Maine this summer because I direct the Baptist camp, so we had some playful banter when I opened the show.  We are not competitors in the least, and in fact, have several campers who spend a week at both.  After the service,, a gentleman name Tim came up to us and asked how he could volunteer at Baptist Park.  It seems it was his first time at this church, and really felt his light could shine by helping us out.  When I asked what areas he was skilled in, he said he was a carpenter.  This is a major score for any summer camp!  I invited him out to our opening service that evening and he came.  This also gave him a chance to meet our head of maintenance and make some plans.  After a mandatory background check, we hope to utilize Tim on many projects around camp.