The Rest of the Story - Part II

I decided I needed to talk to my pastor about the recurring dreams. He is also the president of the board for Love INC -Fairbanks. I told my wife I was not going to mention the dreams unless he spoke of the organization first. I had other issues to discuss with him about the job I was holding at the time.

A funny thing happened next. As we began our meeting, my pastor said, "you know, I was having breakfast with someone today that was asking about you." Come to find out, it was the executive director of Love INC. I left the pastors office and went straight to the ED's office.

Talking with the ED it seemed a no brainer for me to return to work for Love INC. I was being invited into a new position as Special Projects Manager which covered everything from special events, fundraising, grant writing, and a host of other stuff.

In the 20 years of Love INC being existent in Fairbanks, they had done very little in the public eye. When I came on, I was determined for this to change. The first public event was the Golden Days Parade, held annually to celebrate the founding of Fairbanks. There is also a Street Fair following the parade. We participated in both and received a tremendous response from the public. The next event was the Tanana Valley Fair.

We as Love INC decided very late in the process to have a booth at the fair in August. So late in fact, we were placed on a waiting list and told our chances for aquiring a spot were slim to none. Two days before the fair was to start, they called us and offered us booth space. My boss and I both went to see where we would be located and pick up the necessary paperwork.

While we were being shown our place and being told all the particulars, my boss asked who our neighbors would be. We were surprised to hear that one of them was to be Planned Parenthood. We both looked at each other in disbelief and and proceeded to complete our introduction to the fair.

Back at our office we started discussing things like "what should we do with our booth having P.P. as our neighbor." One idea was to buy every box of LIFE cereal and hand them out to the crowd. Before long we remembered about the newly established 'unofficial' Bound4Life team here in Fairbanks. We contacted them and offered them an opportunity to share our booth.

The first several days of the fair everything went fine. We did have one surprise. P.P was at a completely different locatoin. This did not stop us. Our booth looked great. 1/2 was all about Love INC and the services we provide. the other was all about Bound4Life. They had recently done a 21 day stand at the local Federal Courthouse and had some great pictures (you can see in the pic above) that caught the eye. Some of the group sat at the booth and wore the LIFE tape.

The fact that the LIFE tape was being worn became an issue with Love INC staff, the board and some of the churches Love INC represents. The board ended up having a discussion about all of this and how to appease the masses. I went to bat for the youth that were involved in the movement and sitting with me in the booth. Years ago, I too was a teenager with passion for Jesus in my heart only to have a pastor, elder, or person in authority come along and dump a bucket of cold water on my zeal. I was not going to let that happen here. As it turned out, by the time the 'official' word on the decision about Bound4Life came down, the fair was all but over. I was proud of the youth being bold enough to stand their ground. I was also very thankful that God provided a way for there to be a stand for LIFE in a place that is littered with immorality.

Next Up - October thru December :) Stay Tuned Folks