the best birthday party ever

12 Then Jesus said to his host, "When you give a luncheon or dinner, do not invite your friends, your brothers or relatives, or your rich neighbors; if you do, they may invite you back and so you will be repaid. 13 But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, 14 and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous." (Luke 14)

Well, it's time for one of Anda's mile-long posts!! I need to be asleep right now, but I just can't let tonight fade from our memory! Randy is preaching Luke 14 this coming Sunday and when he's reading the above passage and as we're reading Shane Claiborne at the same time, of course the question arises "why don't we try this - shouldn't we just obey?" When we started trying to figure out when, Randy eagerly received the idea that his birthday would be a good time. So tonight my husband's birthday gift was to take me, Terrence and Julie Butler, Tyler Jackson (our Op Camp/Mighty Men mentor from Baylor), and 15 other people from Como (most of whom he didn't know before tonight) to Texas de Brazil for a "feast". He literally went around in the Mighty Man van one hour before our reservation and picked up people off the street. And wow, was our group a colorful one!! (And can you even believe that I forgot my camera!!!?) Tyler took several pics on his phone for Facebook so maybe we'll have a few. Anyway, I wish I could remember all the comments, all the looks on people's faces (in and out of our group), and all the conversations that took place at that "banquet" tonight. Terrence and Tyler were helping transport people there, but in our van we had an 83-year-old man with no teeth from the Church of Christ nursing home here in Como. He walked with a cane and couldn't hear (or eat) much, but he just couldn't stop saying thank you. We had a guy who was pretty drunk all night and so didn't eat much but kept loading up his plate (I should note here that we had the wine glasses removed from the table when we got there, but some of these people drink 24/7). Ha! On the way home, Thurman (the drunk guy) asked for about the 10th time if everyone was full and the prostitute who he kept claiming as his girlfriend said, "yeah, but if you ask us again in about 30 minutes, maybe we won't be anymore!" We had another drug addicted prostitute in our car also. There were a couple of older men in their 50's who were born and raised in Como. Almost all of them had to go to the bathroom as soon as we got to the restaurant due to the all-day alcolhol consumption, so just picture us getting the MM van parked by the valet - all these people are piling out of the van while a Lexus waits behind us. We go inside and and people are wandering around looking for the bathroom and examining the salad bar. I mean, it was comical and beautiful and bizarre! I just didn't even look at people when we walked in, but I sure wish I could have been a fly on the wall!! Our waiter was wonderful and didn't even bat an eye at the questions concerning doggy bags, etc. At one point, when Randy was trying to take a pic of the whole table, one of the drug dealer guys, yelled "hang on - I've got warrants out" as he held his napkin in front of his face! Towards the end of the night, almost every one of them was pacing, etc because they were needing cigarettes or fixes - it was kind of funny. Even now, as I write this, I'm just crying because as I was standing up bouncing Malachi to sleep I looked at the long table with this group of people and I could see Jesus sitting there with them laughing (and let me tell you that they can laugh!). It's hard to put into words, but He was comfortable there. And Randy was like a little boy in a candy store - he loved every last minute of it. He told them that it was his best birthday ever (and trust me, he wasn't lying).

The Mighty Men started their summer program today which is lawn mowing M-W-F and reading "school" on T-Th. They will get to keep 20% of what they make and the remaining 80% will go towards their trip to Africa next summer. For those who don't miss a day for the next two weeks, they get to have a slumber party at our house on the 20th and for those who make it all summer, they get an ipod, a trip to the lakehouse just to play, and their families will receive $100. Seven of them came today so we'll see how many of them make it! I am loving (and freaking out) watching these boys grow up - I'm now looking UP to D'Leeland and Byron! They are becoming like sons to me (at least some of them - and those are the ones calling me "Mama Brown"). Can't wait to see what God will do with them.

Be praying for RB this Sunday. We've decided that we're glad that he doesn't preach on a regular basis and my admiration for preacher's wives has increased dramatically - we're sort of eating and breathing this sermon! We'll be at the lake with Brent and Julie Pennington this weekend and will drive in on Sunday a.m. before church. REally excited about spending time with these precious friends.

On Tuesday p.m.'s this month we're having homemade ice cream in our driveway for whoever wants to come. Last week was really encouraging and we met several more from our "hood." I have a feeling that we'll get to see some of our new friends here again tomorrow night! That's the cool thing - they are really becoming "friends" and not recipients of our ministry. Does that make sense? I realized the other day when someone made the comment that it would be great when the Connally's move here because we'll have some neighbors that I was offended because I have neighbors NOW! The only discouraging part about all of this is that my heart is still hopelessly selfish and self-absorbed and much of the time I wouldn't mind quitting. His grace keeps stretching, though, as He stretches me. One of the many reasons I love Shane Claiborne is that he talks about how HARD community is. Just reassuring to know that it's not supposed to be easy.

I'm sure there's more to say - you're thinking, "REALLY?!" but it's time to go feed my precious little happy baby one more time and go to bed. I'll try and post some pics later on this week. For the next post maybe I'll fill you in on how God has convicted us that He's in charge of how many children we have - no, I'm not pregnant, but I'm also not kidding....This was a quite unexpected answer to the prayer "Lord, we want to be completely surrendered to You - just show us what we need to let go of!" But that's another story (just don't be shocked if our family of 8 doesn't stay that way)!

LOVED all the Paris pictures and can't wait to hear about the trip! Randy says thanks for the cool GPS, Rita, and for your sweet words on the blog! You guys are such a blessing!

love y'all a lot,
Anda