The Maker's Dozen

The last several posts have kind of been in serious teaching mode.
It's time for a little lighter reading, so I'll reminisce a bit.

When I went away to college, it was the first time I'd ever lived away from home. I was 17 years old when I arrived on campus, 60 miles from my hometown in Nebraska. My 18th birthday came a couple of weeks after school started. I didn't know too many people, so I was pretty depressed on that day. I really didn't feel like walking around cheerfully announcing, "Hi, my name's Dan. Today's my birthday!" I felt alone and unimportant - and cranky.

To make matters worse, an upperclassman shared my birthday. Everywhere I went all day long, "Happy Birthday Darin" was chalked on the sidewalk and posted on walls.. My mood just kept getting blacker. Thankfully, my friend Randy - whom I'd known for all of two weeks - found out it was my birthday and mobilized a group of students to cheer me up. Somebody got a cake and they had a little party for me. It seems pretty insignificant now, but it was huge to me back then. (Randy and I remain good friends all these years later.)

Like all "itty-bitty freshmen", I had to learn where to go and what to do. I did have a bit of an advantage, because my sister had been attending that college for a couple of years. The year before, I had occasionally gone to a Bible study at a house across the street from the campus, where I met a few of the students. But I still had to experience the learning curve associated with being on my own for the first time. No one else was going to make sure I got enough sleep 
(I didn't), made it to classes on time or did my homework. I was responsible for my own behavior and choices. And I had to learn some lessons the hard way. (For example, I learned to never schedule an English grammar class at 7:30 in the morning...)


One of the classes I took that first semester was choral music. I had enjoyed singing in the chorus throughout junior high and high school and looked forward to singing with a group in college. 
And this was a low risk activity - I didn't have to try out and take a chance of being rejected. If you signed up, you were in. The school had several singing groups one could try out for, but I did NOT intend to do so. I had no confidence in my abilities - I had always been the kid who was just not quite good enough, the one picked last on the team. I was comfortable being one of a hundred voices in the choir, and had no desire to move beyond that comfort zone. 
But God had different plans...


My first day in choir, a girl I'd met at the Bible study across the street made a beeline for me. Louann asked me to come and try out for the singing group she was in. I protested that I didn't think I was good enough, that I hadn't even considered trying out, and any other excuse I could come up with. She would not be dissuaded. She pretty much took me by the arm and dragged me up to the classroom to try out. She saw something in me that I couldn't see, potential I had no idea was there.

Next thing I knew, I was part of the "Maker's Dozen". (Clever name, huh?) I had no idea what I was in for. In retrospect, I believe the main reason God sent me to this particular school was to be involved in this group. I learned so much: group dynamics, how to improvise harmonies, organizational skills, and trusting God for provision. Honestly, the lessons I learned in class were insignificant compared to what I learned as part of the Maker's Dozen.


As the name implies, the group consisted of 12 college students, fairly evenly divided between male & female. We were an officially recognized college organization, student directed and led. The first couple of months were a whirlwind of activity. We spent lots of time selecting songs, developing arrangements and harmonies, learning each others' strengths and weaknesses, and rehearsing. We learned how to share our faith publicly, and how to trust each other. And we bought fabric and sewed matching costumes. Here's what we looked like:

This photo was actually from my second year in the group, so I was 19 years old. I'm in the back row, far left. Be thankful this picture is in black & white - just look at that fabric! Those shirts were vintage '70s garish. At least the vests and dresses were a solid color, kind of a sky blue. In keeping with our very modest budget, we also designed and hand-colored our promotional posters, which is where this picture came from. (Amazing that I still have one of these!) The complete poster looked like this:

Finally, around Thanksgiving, we started performing publicly. We sang in churches, schools and nursing homes, prisons and city missions. We ministered to youth groups and in senior centers. The schedule started out kind of slowly until after winter break. The second semester we traveled nearly every weekend to towns all over the Midwest, with a major trip over spring break. I was in Maker's Dozen two years, and in that time we drove through 35 states. My first year our big trip was to New Jersey and New York. The second year's trip was to Arizona and southern California. Who knows how many miles we logged in college vans?

While the school did provide vehicles, we were expected to raise support for gas and expenses through freewill offerings. We stayed with host families who fed and lodged us, and tried to study as we drove down the road. Most of all, we learned to present Christ publicly, not just with our words but with our actions. We had to really love one another, overlooking quirks and flaws as we cared about each other. Each of us had opportunity to speak publicly at times, and to demonstrate the love of Jesus by the way we behaved when we weren't on stage.


One valuable life lesson was that ministry is truly about God, not us. He's responsible for results - we simply have to be faithful and available to do our part. Here's a story to illustrate what I mean:

We were traveling through Iowa toward the end of the school year. Offerings hadn't been very good, and we were concerned that we'd end up in the red, with no money set aside for the next year's startup costs. So we prayed about it before our last concert of the trip, telling God how much we needed a good response.


The church was a mainline denomination, with mostly older people attending the service. They didn't look very happy to see us in our bright costumes, bringing (gasp) guitars into the sanctuary! Throughout the concert, they sat with arms folded, politely applauding but not too enthusiastic. And we flopped - forgetting words, harmonies not quite right, stammering and stuttering. We were embarrassed, and felt as if we'd really failed God, and at the worst possible time!


After the concert, we visited with people, prepared to apologize for our lackluster performance. And to our surprise, they were so complimentary, telling us how wonderful it had been, how they really sensed the Holy Spirit in our presentation, how much they'd enjoyed the whole concert. We were thinking, "were you even in the same room?" And this wasn't just polite talk - when the offering was counted up, it was the largest single gift we'd received the entire year! It was more than enough to pay the remaining bills, with a good amount to bank for the next year.


God really built our faith that day. We learned it wasn't about our performance - it's about Him! 
Oh, He desires excellence, that we should share our gifts freely and do our very best. But staying connected to Him is the real key. Lessons like this have stayed with me throughout my life. 
I've been involved in some sort of public ministry ever since, just doing what I do and trusting God to bring fruit from my labors. I'm so thankful that God changed my plans all those years ago.

Salvaging Bricks

From a very young age I learned how to work. "God helps those who helps themselves" is not a Scriptural proverb, but it was definitely a guiding principle in my family. If we insisted on a real Bible verse we might hear, "If anyone will not work, neither shall he eat." (2 Thessalonians 3:10)

As I have mentioned before, I grew up in a hotel in small town Nebraska. The Mary-Etta Hotel was built around 1905 as a railroad stop. We took over in the early 1960s, and the place had never really been updated. So lots of things needed attention and improvement, and my dad was always at work repairing and restoring and rejuvenating. And we didn't just have the hotel to attend to - the Mary-Etta also included a cafe, a tavern and party rooms.

Our corner apartment was on the top floor. 

The cafe is at the lower left, the tavern was just out of the picture to the left.

Running four separate businesses under one roof meant lots of work to be done, and everyone in the family was expected to pitch in and do their part. When I was young, this meant helping carry stuff from one place to another, or sweeping the steps. Sometimes my job was just staying out of the way. We had no lawn - first time I ever mowed was when I was 15 or 16. But boy, did we have sidewalks! When it snowed, we had almost an entire city block 4 sidewalks wide to clear. And my father was not one who would settle for a one-scoop path. No, we had to shovel the whole thing. (Not without complaint, I might add. Although not when Dad could hear.)

Around 1970, Dad got the idea of opening a steakhouse. He bought an old tavern building a half block south of the hotel, along with the sewing machine repair shop next door. For the next year, our family worked to turn the building into a nice restaurant. I don't remember any contractors being hired, at least not for the demolition and construction. We were doing this on a budget, while we continued running the hotel and related businesses. And Dad wanted to keep this project under wraps, so few people outside of the family were involved. Actually, even WE didn't really know what he had in mind.

One of the first things required was to remove the brick wall running right down the center, separating the building into the bar and repair shop. I thought this process would be pretty cool, blasting the wall to smithereens with a sledgehammer, maybe even some explosives. But no... as mentioned in the last post, my father doesn't believe in wasting anything. Though we did use a sledgehammer, we had to very carefully tap the wall, removing bricks one at a time. And then we hauled the loose bricks outside and piled them on the trailer that had been salvaged from a rowboat. Dad owned a little house one block east of the hotel, used strictly for storage and for a garden plot. That's where the bricks ended up, stacked against the wall.

After a year of remodeling, we finally installed carpet, heating/air conditioning, kitchen fixtures and everything else we needed. The business was ready to be opened. For the next year, our family actually ran five businesses simultaneously. And I got my first paying job, at age 14. I was the dishwasher/busboy for the steakhouse. I do not recall applying for this position. I think it was just assumed that, as a member of the family, I would do my part to help the business succeed. And I got paid! My salary was 75 cents an hour, less than the federal minimum of $1.60 - and I was thrilled to actually earn a paycheck.

That's Mom on the phone at the end of the bar in our steakhouse, circa 1973.

I worked at the steakhouse for over a year, till I picked up a job at a local greenhouse for the princely amount of $1.25 an hour. Still below the minimum wage, but a decent pay raise.
I started that job in late February of 1973 at age 15. I was responsible for watering all the plants, moving them from building to building, pulling weeds, sweeping and mopping and all that sort of thing. I liked the job fine and was shocked when, about the end of May, I was informed my services were no longer required. It wasn't that I had done a bad job - the plants were mature and mostly sold already. There just wasn't enough work to keep me busy. So I was laid off.

My 16th birthday wasn't till the end of August. Most businesses wouldn't hire anyone younger than 16. And my dad had hired replacement dishwashers, so that option wasn't really available. So I was facing a summer with little to no spending money. I did pick up a little contract work, helping a local farmer haul bales from the field to the barn. But that was only good for a couple of week's pay. (Plus great lunches cooked by the farmer's wife!)

My father had a request for me since I had time on my hands. Remember those bricks we had knocked out of that wall? He wanted me to clean all the old mortar off them so they'd be ready for a new project. Now, he wasn't offering to pay me for this task. It was just expected, as a family member, that I'd want to do my part. The problem was, I didn't. I wanted to earn some money, not work hard in the sweltering summer for no pay. So I avoided the job, hoping something better would come along.


I continued procrastinating the whole summer long. Dad didn't hassle me about it - just reminded me every once in a while that the job was still waiting. I had become a serious Christian the year before, but I still needed a lot of character growth. Finally, the Holy Spirit convicted me that I wasn't honoring my father as the Bible instructed. (Colossians 3:20) And I read the proverb about the disgraceful son who won't help when there's work to be done. (Proverbs 10:5) So grudgingly, at the very end of the summer, I made my way down to the 4th street house and started knocking mortar off bricks.


It was my second afternoon of brick cleaning, and I had managed to get grimy, hot and sweaty. One of my friends came running up around 4 p.m. He told me the big supermarket up the street was looking for a few new guys. He'd been hired, and he thought they had room for me, too. It was too late to go home and change, so I walked the block or so to the market and put in an application. I was dirty and smelly and had obviously been outside working. I don't recommend this method of job search, but they hired me on the spot. I turned 16 a week or so later and worked there until after I graduated high school and moved away for college.


Waiting for my birthday to come gave me just enough time to finish cleaning all the bricks. 
If I hadn't obeyed the prompting of my conscience to do what my father wanted, I wouldn't have been in the right place to get that job. I believe God was training me to listen to the wise counsel of His word. That good steady job was a reward for obedience.


Blessings have almost always come in my life when I've been actively pursuing God's will. Rarely if ever have I been blessed by sitting around waiting for something to fall into my lap. I have found God expects us to do what we know to be right and let Him guide and direct our steps. The brick story has served as an object lesson for me ever since. 

God blesses obedience and faithfulness, not idleness and selfishness. I wasn't thrilled about cleaning up those bricks, and can't say my attitude was stellar. But I was there working, because it was what my father wanted and I (finally) was willing to obey. And God blessed me with a good steady job to reinforce that it's always the right choice to obey His word. 

It's been a guiding principle of my life ever since.