Full Circle

Dearest Rachel –

Another day, another letter where I don’t know what to tell you about. Not that I’m exactly short on topics, as much as the topics themselves are a little short, in terms of what I have to say. Some of them are due to a lack of details (including one about someone who you may have just met up there; hopefully, he can fill you in on the details of what happened, but for now, all I know is that he’s suddenly on the other side, where you are – I hope. I can’t speak for his heart as much as I could for yours), some are due to my desire to avoid talking about the wider world – the political realm, in particular – no matter how much it might have been part of our typical conversation back in the day. Others could be a topic, but given their lack of focus at the moment, there’s no point going into details that I’m not clear on. And while that lack could be a topic of discussion in and of itself, since it’s about travel, it’s not something that I’m about to embark on any time soon, so this can be set on the back burner for a fairly indefinite period of time.

Which brings up the reason why any travel I might wish to undertake will need to be set aside for the time being. While I’m not anchored to a job or anything like that, the beginning of the school year also starts a new year of various commitments at church that revolve around that (which may prove difficult for future travel plans; I’m learning that my favored destination will likely be oppressively hot during the summer time, and if I want to go, I’ll have to take some time off from these commitments. But again, this is something for another year, I’ll wager). In particular, tonight with be the orientation and briefing for the volunteers working with the Awana clubs that will be starting up next week.

To be sure, it’s nothing that Daniel and I haven’t dealt with in years past; we know our niches within the operation at the Randhurst location. And apart from the change of venue – and the logistical differences involved therewith – you might be able to guess nearly everything that will be said (indeed, for all I know, since you exist outside of time these days, it’s possible you’ve already heard what will be said) tonight, since you went to enough of these in the past – including several years’ worth even before you inveigled my into taking a position as an assistant leader within the organization.

But one thing that’s different about this year is that – and bear in mind, this doesn’t directly affect me, except as a member of the church, and even then, the multi-campus layout it has these days leads to a certain disconnect between those at one location and another, despite the fact that they are all under a single umbrella – we’ve started a club at a third location as of this year. That’s right, the Portage Park location, in the city proper, is finally reviving the original Awana club.

Now, since you didn’t grow up as a clubber down in Macomb (I never thought to ask if any such group existed where you were growing up, but given your parents’ concerns about how involved you were in church, I doubt you’ve have been aware of or brought to such a thing if one did exist down there), this may not hold a great deal of significance to you, necessarily. Then again, you were around when we brought the old Northside Gospel Center into our fold a few years back; we visited the place before it was remodeled, and you might recall the room downstairs that served as a mini-museum of the Awana organization. This is because that location was where the club was first originated and run from, all the way back in the late Forties (technically, I guess the club officially began in 1950, but Dad recalls having attended in the years leading up to that, and I discovered that the concept was first dreamed up in the early Forties – prior to America’s involvement in WWII, in fact – so I guess I was wrong about the camp being a precursor to the club, after all), and spread nationally and eventually internationally from there. With the diminution of their congregation prior to the merger, the program was dropped for a time, and even after being incorporated into our campus network, we didn’t have sufficient volunteers there to start the club back up – until now.

But now that we have both demand from parents with kids in the area, as well as a supply of volunteers attending the location, it’s about to start up there. And to think, at this time last year, we were only operating out of the flagship Des Plaines campus; now, we’re running out of three locations, including the place where it all started. So we’ve actually managed to bring things back full circle. Well, let’s be fair; God’s managed to bring things back full circle. Presumably, He doesn’t see the area as a lost cause, or He would have let the whole operation die out. As it is, things are back, but we’ll have to see how well things go; all the plans in the world don’t make a lot of difference if He’s not supporting them.

With that being said, I suppose I should ask you to keep an eye on all of us as we begin this new school year, and everything it entails, and wish us luck, as we’re going to need it.