Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Ready, Aim......


My father has been a preacher since I was very young (missionary before that) and we were always in fairly small churches. (Sometimes very small). (20-100 people) That means we had to do a lot of things in the church ourselves, because there simply weren't enough willing people to get them done. For instance, I started to teach Sunday School when I was in the third grade. There have been only a few years since that time when I haven't been teaching either Sunday School, Children's Church, a Wednesday night program, or a combination.

I was specifically thinking of a time when we had to install a new thermostat in a church in Colorado. The sanctuary was large, and took up the second and third stories of its section of the church. The heater was on the third floor at the back of the sanctuary, and we need the thermostat down by the pulpit. My father and I crawled up into the attic above the baptistry and looked across the sanctuary's suspended ceiling to the heater. It was much too far to just snake the wires. My father, whose many hobbies will someday be a blogpost of their own, had a great idea.

He brought his bow up, and tied a thin string onto an arrow shaft. He tied the other end of the string to a wire, blunted the tip of the arrow, and had me watch for tangles as he took aim. It was perfect. The arrow flew right through the air above the tiles, and rested in the section with the heater. If it had been any closer it would've hit the heater. Dad went to find the arrow then pulled the wire on through. It all worked just as he'd planned, and I remember thinking what an original thinker my dad was.

That's one thing my father has taught me. Think outside the box. In fact, I'm not sure Dad has a box sometimes.

5 comments:

JAM said...

That's a great story. I sometimes surprise myself and have a lightbulb moment like that, but the people who live in that zone are amazing.

Side note: they actually make blunt tips for arrows. Ususally used to hunt birds without getting your arrow stuck into a tree limb 20ft off the ground. Back in my teen years, my best friends and I did a lot of archery and we used the blunt ones in the back yard to lessen the chance of killing each other or someone in the next yard over.

Crissybug said...

What a cool story. Your Dad seems like a great guy!

Anonymous said...

Wow, I hadn't heard that story before. That's awesome.

Qtpies7 said...

Thats awesome! I read that to my dh and ds, and they think its cool. Its something they would do.
I don't like to go in the grass, so my dh strung up a clothes line that is on a pulley system so I can hang clothes without leaving the deck today!

Lainey-Paney said...

Definitely a "think outside of the box" story.

Wow.
I never would have ever thought of that!