Friday and Saturday we worked getting ready forKaci's open house. Late afternoon downpour Saturday altered plans a bit, but the party went on in fine style. A couple of pix. Tony is testing the chocolate fountain while Susie arranges the goodies.
That's a reflection over Kaci's head, not a crown.
We try to be in Grand Rapids on Sundays because we greatly enjoy the Methodist church that Matt and family go to. Matt leads the musical praise team, which makes his Momma very proud and teary, and we always enjoy and appreciate Pastor Will’s sermons. He’s in a series now on the book of Revelation. The writer’s message, he explained, is that people have a choice: God’s empire or Satan’s empire. Satan’s empire has a front man – the beast. At the time the book was written, the symbolism pointed to Nero, the despot of the time, as Satan’s beast. As Albq friend Jack Nuzum, who teaches a Bible class in HS, often points out, the final outcome forecast in Rev is that God’s empire wins in the end. In the meantime, it’s not necessarily easy; in fact it may be terrible. Every generation since Nero, loosely speaking, has had its own beast to deal with, Hitler being the easiest example. On a personal level, Christians face the same choice of empires to follow in their individual lives.
On a global level, the event of the last couple of years that sticks with me is when a TV crew was kidnapped by Islamic radicals. Convert to Islam or die, they told the hostages. They converted. How do we deal with that beast? I asked Will later. There’s no clear answer, but history tells us there could be much bloodshed, he said. Sobering.
Sunday evening Matt took us to visit his plant – a box manufacturing plant. About six months ago Matt made a gutsy career move: left the company he had been with since he got out of the army and where he had risen to sales manager of the Grand Rapids plant to become plant general manager at another packaging-manufacturer in Grand Rapids, Pratt Industries. The plant was in decline – sales, morale, pride, image. He’s been working hard to turn things around. And making progress: the workers recently made wage concessions to help the business succeed. Setting the tone, Matt and Suzy spent weekend time painting and sprucing up some break rooms and conference rooms. Son Tony is working there this summer – odd jobs, filling in for people on summer vacations. Susie said to him, “I’m so proud of you, Tony.” “You should be prouder of your son,” he said. “He's got a huge job and the respect he gets in the plant is amazing.” It’s not easy, though. There are some “beasts” lurking around that he has to deal with. Something you might want to know: Pratt makes all their boxes, and other corrugated products, from recycled paper. Their PR material says they save 30,000 trees a day! That's your statistic of the day.
Cheers,
Rob and Susie
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