Life on Life Discipleship
Some of our international friends had asked us to take them to the famous Mississippi River, which they had heard of even back in their home country. The 'Mighty Mississippi' forms most of Wisconsin's western border with Minnesota and Iowa, and is about a two hour drive from where we live in Madison. So we got together a picnic lunch and a group of internationals, and had a lovely time hiking along bluffs in the woods which overlook the converging point of the Wisconsin River with the Mississippi.
After hiking, or rather, strolling and talking (;-) we took a short drive down to the Mississippi River to satisfy our international friends' curiosity. At the little beach, we found a motley crew of characters, including a rambunctious and noisy group of locals who were enjoying one of Wisconsin's famous malted barley beverages while having a party right in a shallow part of the river. Their group noticed us trying to take a photo, and sent one of their anebriated crew over with the instructions, "Go help those people take a photo!" What the confused man understand was, "They want you in their photo!" This was not the case, but we didn't have the heart to tell this kind-hearted fella that we didn't really want him in our picture. This man also did not seem to have any thought for social-distancing, which made it really awkward; but it did provide some nice life-on-life discipleship opportunties for a lively discussion on how God and the Bible view alcohol consumption and drunkenness! This is often how we see the Lord using us to mentor and teach our international friends: through conversations and sharing of Scripture when the Holy Spirit brings topics up in conversation or life...
