random thoughts... My name is Aaron, sometimes called Max because it's my middle name. I recently married a beautiful woman who just so happens to be the love of my life.

So there's this new family coming to my church. They might've been coming for a while, I just might not have noticed? Anyway, the whole family is pretty cool. The dad, RW2, is a general contractor and owns his own business, I don't know if the mom works, and the kid, RW3, is in high school.

Long story shorter, I invited the kid to join the student band after I found out he could play the guitar. Since I play guitar, I told him I could help him out learning the songs. We met a couple of times and he played in the band.

Yesterday, RW2 was going to shoot a video for the church this weekend. I went along with the house techie to help out. He greeted me and told me how thankful he was for the positive influence I was making in RW3's life. I was kind of like, "Ok, thanks." I mean, I could of said it was a privilege and all, because it is. I used to be in the high school ministry and I loved it. But at that moment, I was kind of surprised. I couldn't think of a decent enough reply except for to nod and smile.

We got on the roof, shot the video, and were kind of looking around and stuff, and then RW2 told us this story. It was about his grandpa. He said that his grandpa grew up with parents who didn't go to church. They were normal people with normal problems. When the grandpa was 13, he and some friends decided it would be fun to break into a local warehouse. Unfortunately for them, the town gossip lived close by, heard/saw them breaking in and called the owner of the warehouse. The owner and his 19 yearold son (Sonny-this isn't his name) went over and snuck into the building. They could hear the kids roaming around, spray painting, and having fun playing hide and seek. The owner and son split up and went looking for kids. The grandpa, unaware that other people were now there, ran around a corner right into the owner's son. The son grabbed him and didn't let go. The kid screamed and flailed, but couldn't get out. His screams alerted his friends and he was the only one who was caught. The owner took the kid home and told his parents that they could press charges, send him to jail, charge him for damages, etc. , but, if they agreed, he could work off the damages at the warehouse every day after school.

When the grandpa met Sonny at the warehouse the first day, Sonny told him led him down to the basement. Halfway down the steps Sonny stopped and sat on the side wall. The grandpa sat on the other side and watched as Sonny took out a plank of wood, some fish hooks, thread, and bagan to make flies (for fly fishing). The grandpa was, understandably, perplexed. He thought that he was going to be working, not watching as this young man tied flies. Every day Sonny taught him about flies. Eventually, the grandpa would begin to tie flies while Sonny read scripture to him.

RW2 told me that his grandpa became a Christian because of what Sonny did. Because of that, RW2's dad was a Christian, and so on and so forth all the way down to now (4 generations). He said he told me that story because he wanted me to know how much one person's influence can be.

Yet again, I didn't know what to say. I can only hope that I've made those kinds of connections, that kind of impact with the people I've come into close contact with in the past few years of ministry.