Olympic Memories

My love for the Olympics began on a farm in Indiana in front of a 13" black and white TV.  It was 1984, just putting that year down makes me feel a bit old; but that was the first year the Olympics stick out in my memory.  They were being held in LA and America was pretty excited.  My family was really excited.  There were a number of reasons of course for the building excitement. 

 First we had a family rule that we would only watch Lawrence Welk; Animal Kingdom; and any sporting event on Sunday afternoons.  I'm not sure how my parents were able to enforce such a strict rule, but they did.  Most of the Sunday afternoon sports watching was really boring!  I remember trying with my younger brother to be interested in golf, we'd never seen the sport in real life, and never quite got it, or the scoring in tennis.  Never the less there we were every Sunday hoping for something more interesting than the week before; basketball and football seasons went down well.  When the Olympics were on, however, we could watch TV all the time.  Wow!  What an amazing turn of events in our young minds.  Watching sports during the week; all week long access to the TV.  We were thrilled, and well entertained. 

 It wasn't just watching the sport, it was also a sense of patriotism for our country and standing by our USA flag with honor as one of our home team obtained a gold medal.  

My love for the nations continued to expand during these Olympic games as well.  I think being exposed to seeing national flags and hearing and seeing their fans made an impression.  

The second main and most thrilling reason at the time to love the Olympics in my house was McDonald's.  I know now it's not actual food, and Ethan and I basically never go there, attempt to never go there and have at points made rules forbidding our family from eating there.  This was the 1980's, so there may have been actual food in the food served?  

I grew up on a farm.  We grew the food we ate.  Being a family of 7 and living with my Grandparents making our numbers around the dinner table a big number 9 we simply didn't go out to eat.  EVER!  Well, maybe we got to go to my Dad's business meetings, but rarely.  Eating out was a HUGE treat.  

In 1984 for every gold, silver or bronze medal the USA team won McDonald's gave away food.  It was free food.  So we went, got a burger, peeled off the sticker to find out what else we could get for free.  I think it started from an ad in the paper.  I don't know if the McDonald's in Decatur, IN knew what hit them, but it was our BIG family.  My brother and I would camp around the TV, holding onto our McDonald's coupons.  Sometimes we were routing for the home team, because it was an exciting match.  Other times we would be sitting there watching to see what kind of food we would be entitled to at McDonald's if the USA would just win.  

To this almost 9 year old girl it was a magical season.  We couldn't wait for the next Olympics.  We had tasted the freedom of TV access and McDonald's fries.  Our lives would never be the same.  

This Olympic season I'm actually at the Olympics.  I didn't get into the paid events, but got to see the triathlon go past Buckingham Palace(!).  The draw for me was not about McDonald's coupons or getting to watch TV all week long.  It was about the part of my curiosity for the nations that grew from seeing those flags and people during those early Olympic memories.  

I think that in some ways the coming together of the nations even for sporting events gets God really excited.  It's like a foretaste of heaven and what's to come for Christians.  There have been so many teams representing the nations coming through to share the love and holiness of God to the nations that have gathered to celebrate life and achievement in the Olympics.  

Watching from the vantage point of someone who's serving a bit in the background has been really exciting.  It's like I have become a fan; encouraging; feeding and investing in lives who are bearing Christ's witness on the streets of London. 

For more on the some of the testimonies coming out of these outreach teams here's a link: http://www.forever2012.com/   

Now, I'm off to order some more food; people must eat!  The Olympics outreaches are almost over, pray that we finish well. 

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I'd like to be blogging

Some days when so much has happened I just want to collect my thoughts and tell you the story.  Like amazing funny and sometimes benign stories.  I should be writing it down. I really should be writing something down.  

The thing that I have been doing instead of blogging is ordering food.  LOADS, literally coming by semi load, of food.  So, about the time I've begun to collect my thoughts I remember that I totally forgot to order fruit for lunch tomorrow, or I think about that empty place in the pantry and try to remember that one item I keep forgetting to reorder.  It's a whole different game when you run out of fruit and serving 600 rather than just 2!

There have been some really amazing, I mean amazing things happen through our summer.  I'll write about it later.  In the meantime, keep praying for Ethan and I as we're spending our summer serving the Olympic outreach teams.  It has been our personal marathon in some ways.  I spend about 60 hours/week in the kitchen prepping, ordering, and serving food.  It's physically exhausting most days.  On the plus side, people are hearing about Jesus and I'm still losing weight with all the moving around.  

For now, enjoy these stories from the Outreach as told by others :)
www.forever2012.com