Twenty-Eight
____________
Fly-Tipping
Current Svalbard Super Y-MAX Perimeter Temperature: 0 Celsius / 32
Fahrenheit
Both bedroom alarm clocks buzzed
loudly at 3:45 a.m. startling both Renie and Cornell. Cornell brushed past
Renie almost knocking him to the floor.
“Sorry buddy,” he said, “but my
muscles get in the way sometimes.”
“Yeah, Cornell, you are as hard
as a rock and it sure felt like I hit one just now."
“Flip on the TV,” commanded
Cornell.
“I got it,” Renie rushed to the set
and flipped it on. “We have about twelve minutes left.”
Renie reflected back to that
fateful evening when he had accepted a ride from a former schoolmate, an
evening that led to the death of an innocent bystander and a twenty-five
to life conviction for himself, but the heaviness of guilt’s cross sometimes
overwhelmed him so much he had to cry. He knew Cornell regretted the
murder of a hippie drug dealer who turned out to be an undercover police
officer. He cried for both himself and Cornell, he cried for Cornell’s
little son, Cooper, that neither he nor his friend had met.
“Hey,” Cornell yelled as he
exited the bathroom, “you look depressed, man, you ok?”
Renie composed himself and
replied, “Yeah, it’s time for the meetin’ soon, ain’t it?”
“I hear ya, man… I hear ya!”
Renie rushed to get a glass of
water.
“Get me one too, buddy,”
Cornell hailed.
“Sure thing. You owe me though.”
“Owe you, that’ll be the day.”
“Day is all we got this time of
year, nothin’ but daylight.”
Renie sat down just as the show
began.
“Hey, it’s Clifford James,”
Renie pointed at the TV set.
“Cool.”
Clifford James was one of three
of the outreach ministers who conducted meetings at the Youth Maximum Security
Detention Facility, Y-MAX, during the time Renie and Cornell were housed
there and worked on the prison inmate construction crew.
Clifford greeted the show’s
viewers, “Welcome to Cyrene Youth Center’s weekly broadcast brought to you from
North Richmond, California.”
“That be the poorest community
in that county, Ren,” Cornell commented, “and just about the most dangerous in
the country.”
“Looks like the best place for
Cyrene to be if you ask me.”
“You got it, man. Those folks
need Jesus bad.”
“How come you know so much about
that place, Cornell?”
“I had a cousin who lived near
there a long time ago, man, a long time ago. He used to tell me stories of
goin’ on the fly, as he called it, to dump stolen cars and stuff after
they took what him and his buddies needed off of ‘em.”
“I heard of fly-tippin’,” Renie
affirmed. “Ain’t never done any, but—"
Clifford continued, “Today, we
will be discussing the biblical history of Joseph, not the Joseph who was
step-father to our Lord, the Joseph the son of Jacob and Rachel, the same
Jacob who was later renamed ‘Israel’ by God.”
“I’ve read Joseph’s story a
lot,” commented Renie.
Clifford relayed the history of
Joseph, his dreams, how he was sold by his brothers into slavery, Joseph’s time
in prison, and how God used Joseph to change Egypt and its destiny and
save his own chosen people from starvation.
“That’s cold,” Cornell raged,
“Sellin’ your own brother to slave traders.”
“And Pharaoh's chief butler
forgettin’ all about Joseph down in that prison,” added Renie.
“Life can be cold, harsh and
unfair,” Clifford stared into the television camera to address his viewers,
“but we must all remember that God is in control, always. We pray, like
the Apostle Paul did for that thorn to be removed, but God may say no, he may
say yes, or he may have us wait for an answer. We live for God, or should
anyway, not for ourselves… and that’s probably the hardest part, livin’ only
for God all of the time.”
Renie and Cornell listened as
Clifford read part of what Joseph said to his brothers after his family was in
Egypt, “And God sent me before you to preserve a posterity for you in the
earth, and to save your lives by a great deliverance. So now it was not you who
sent me here, but God….”
“You think we been sent to
prison by God, Ren?”
“Well, that’s a hard question,
but we probably got here on our own. Joseph didn’t do nothin’ wrong, we did.”
“I hear ya.”
“But God uses us now ‘cause
we’re followin’ him and have turned away from our former lives.”
“You got that right, buddy.”
“A little sideline here,”
Clifford commented, “is how Joseph changed the government of Egypt. During a
period of seven years of famine that followed a period of seven years of
wealth, Joseph collected all the money throughout the land of Egypt and land of
Canaan by selling them corn. He eventually got all of their cattle and the
Egyptian people’s land; Genesis 47:20 says, ‘Then Joseph bought all the land of
Egypt for Pharaoh; for every man of the Egyptians sold his field, because the
famine was severe upon them. So the land became Pharaoh’s.’”
The two youths were mesmerized
by the minister’s teaching.
“Joseph did not take the land of
the Egyptian priests,” Clifford affirmed. He went on to show how Joseph made it
a law for all the Egyptians except the priests to give twenty percent of
their increase to Pharaoh as a sort of tax.
“Who would a thought?”
questioned Cornell.
“So viewers, brothers and
sisters in Christ,” Clifford prepared to finish his half-hour broadcast
segment, “Try to think about God being in control of your own personal
life and the universe’s destiny also. He has a perfect plan and it’s not always
for our selfish desires.”
As the boys pondered Clifford’s
final words, the weekly study Bible verses were displayed on screen for viewers
to copy.
“I got the first half,” Renie
stated, “and you get the second, ok?”
“Got it,” responded Cornell, as
the two youths hastily wrote down the scripture references. The text remained
up on screen for five minutes each episode, but by splitting the copying
into two halves Renie and Cornell assured they would not miss a verse. Time
permitting, the boys continued writing and afterward compared notes for
clarification.
“Done!” announced Cornell.
“How’d you beat me? Man.”
The two compared their notes…
“God is in Total control of
Earth's Destiny - He is Sovereign
Daniel 4:17; 4:25; 4:32; 5:21
Romans 13:1-6
Nehemiah 9:6
Job 12:23
1 Samuel 2:6
Psalms 50:10-12; 147:4; 104:1-9
Proverbs 8:29; 16:9; 21:1
Luke 21:25-26
John 1:1, 3, 10, 14
Acts 17:25-27
1 Timothy 2:1-2
Hebrews 13:8
2 Peter 1:2-4.”
“Looks like we got it this time,
Cornell.”
“That was hecka stress, man.”
“Yeah, but you beat me for
once.”
“Now, that I did. I guess I be
writin’ faster these days.”
“Until next time,” the show’s farewell message
sounded over the large screen TV, “from the heart of Cyrene Ministries and the
North Richmond Youth Center, where we assist you in bearing your cross,
God bless you and keep you and fill you with his Spirit.”
Next Chapter: The Writingon the Wall
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