I will always remember this special friend, Pete. He volunteered to help paint with a group from his workplace. He stood out a little because of his shaved head and his marine like attention demeanor. He had brought a group from his work that were participating in a community service project. He was mister organized and did a great job with his friends in making their 2 hour or so project rock.
This began a friendship that saw us have lunch discussion at Rubio's in my neighborhood over the last year plus. We talked about community transformation, spiritual growth and making a difference. We partnered with helping a family in our group that has some serious challenges. Pete stepped up and partnered with me in helping this one families' older son who was still living at home with four little kids from two different mom's. He helped with the painting group that painted this mom's house. We then organized a couple of work parties that helped this mom put her house and life back together.
What I love about Pete is his passion to make a difference. He is someone who won't do something 1/2 way. He is all about giving 150% or more. This is a sad happy story. I knew that Pete wasn't happy with his job and deep down inside wanted his young family to be closer to he and his wife's families back in Ohio. So I knew that unless he found a local job that gave him more opportunity to live out his passions that he would be gone. So he started job hunting and considering different opportunities.
He discovered this amazing business grad program that actually close to where his parent's live. I was excited for him but selfishly didn't want him to leave. He had to take the GRE and pass a few hurdles that would allow him to get into the school and then transition back home in a few months. The time came for his test and he didn't attain the score his school required, missed by 10 points. So he committed himself to retaking the test in a month. So I prayed and waited to hear back. The morning of the test I text him and say I'm praying for him. I get the bad news back that he did worse the second time. He was totally bummed out and ready to 'kill'. I could sense that he couldn't fathom how he could bomb the test the second time. I text back a couple of times that God was in control and that he had been humbled but the world wasn't coming to an end. I knew that I wasn't in a place to meet or talk. So I text him the next day to discover that the director of the program want him badly so he was going to be allowed into the program on a provisional basis.
Now he has 3 weeks to pack, walk away from his work situation and move a few thousand miles away. I had lunch with Pete and he was a transformed man who had truly experienced God's grace and mercy. He could scream and leap tall buildings because of what happened. I sensed he knew that God wanted him in this program. As we shared a few tacos at Rubios and he thanked me for letting him be part of New City - Barrio over the last year or so. I really needed to have done a better job in thanking him for being part of starting a movement that is still growing and figuring out how to make a difference.
I know that May 3 will come to quickly and maybe I'll have lunch with Pete another time at Rubios before he is enrolled at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. I am thrilled to have been able to impacted Pete's life and have a special friend for life who will now look at the world in a different way. I know that his two young sons will grow up with a radical dad whose head will always be shaved but he will understand what it means to be humbled before God and man. Thanks Pete!!
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