Love - I Cor. 13

2 of our regular inmates had gotten in trouble during the week. With each other. For a volunteer, this can be depressing. What to do? No choice really, talk about the situation if the parties involved want to. Try to separate the men involved in the seating sequence so that an actual fight doesn't break out. Since you weren't at the place were the fight took place, you can't make any judgment about who caused the fight. Nor should you be a judge either, that's not what you're there for.

Remember that you can't solve all the inmates problems. Don't get into the trap of thinking that if a person behaved like you, they'd be "well" or "cured". Your job is to be faithful in showing up at the Yokefellow sessions, and pointing people gently to see Jesus. It's that simple.

So, we talked about Love. We read 1 Corinthians chapter 13. I asked the men to read the passage each day in the coming week as homework.

I was interested to see that the King James translation has the key word in the chapter as Charity, instead of Love.

I expect we will discuss this difference in the coming session.

Battle and Surrender

January 13, 2005 - We sang a couple of sings, including the Battle hymn of the Republic. We then read Psalm 46 in memory of the south east Asia tsunami victims. We had a good discussion about where God is during acts of nature like earthquakes and floods and about how often the catastrophy in lives is personal, not widespread and obvious like a tornado. When a single person suffers, like from addiction, is it not as terrible when a person is swept away in a flood?

We then talked about spiritual battle, the reality that there is a spiritual war going on for the future of people and their souls. We talked about always being aware of the battle. Then we talked about understanding how God is able to deliver us from evil and how we should remember that the battle belongs to God and we should have faith (not fear) in him to deliver us.

Sickness in Serving

Jan. 6, 2005 - I was ill with a chest cold, so we had another member of the team fill in. It's important to have enough volunteers available so that when something comes up, the session still takes place. Faithfulness is important.