This past week, Nathan and I left the kids with my parents and joined the
BBC youth and their leaders on their mission trip to the old coal mining town of
Gary, West Virginia. We worked on a house in the run down neighborhood (one of the poorest in the US), painting, roofing, yard cleaning and making porch repairs. Our hosts at the
School For Life program told us in their beautiful southern accent that we were going to hear some real good country music from a friend of theirs,
Jimmy Whitaker. Well, Jimmy got in late on Wednesday night, after a day of driving from his last concert and still mustered up enough energy to play the 19 of us a few of his songs. This guy is amazing, has a heart of gold and deeply loves the Lord. After
a lot of admiration of his ability to play and some joking about trading guitars (Bill Cliff's guitar for Jimmy's "Taylor"), Jimmy cleared out his guitar case and said to Nathan, "The Lord told me when I bought this guitar 2 years ago that it wasn't mine, I was just keeping it until He showed me who to give it to, and I knew as soon as we started talking that you were the one it belonged to." WOW! After we all finally convinced Nathan he had no choice but to take the guitar, Jimmy promised to teach him some things to improve his sound and technique, which they stayed up 'till 2Am the next night going over. I think all the youth and leaders on the trip could tell you that the next worship session Nathan led on the guitar for us all was the best of the week! Praise God for his blessings when we are least expecting it!