Good morning/afternoon.  My name is Amy Stoelinga and several weeks ago I spoke to you about liturgy and how over time I had become more involved here at Holy Rosary; involved in ways I had never planned on.  What I didn’t admit to then was that my initial foray into volunteering my time here was not without its travails.

Now, it is true that it all started with a health crisis that made me realize I needed to get on with trying things I’d always wanted to do, such as singing in a choir.  However, joining the choir was not an easy task.  In fact, my perception of Holy Rosary when we started attending back in 1996 was that it was no easy task to join anything around here.  To my husband, Mark, and I it seemed that there was some inner circle that knew everyone, planned everything, and did all of the work.  Mark volunteered for something and never got called back.  He volunteered again and again was not called back.  Admittedly, my attitude was not ideal at this point—sort of like “fine, you don’t want our help, we won’t help”.  But, then the fore mentioned health wake-up call pushed me past my attitude.  After an announcement at church calling for people to join one of the choirs, I responded, but didn’t get called back.  This time, instead of retreating behind my defensive stance, I persevered and called again.  Eventually, I heard from someone who welcomed me to choir.

Ideally, we shouldn’t have to work this hard to volunteer our time. After all, if there is such need in the church for people to help with liturgy, social gatherings, outreach, or any of the other ministries, then shouldn’t the “powers that be” stand there with open arms and make it easy for us to help?  But, life is not ideal.  All of us, even the so-called “powers that be”, can be overwhelmed with what we all cope with in life and things fall through the cracks.

When I think about it, why should I expect finding my place in the life of the church to be easy?  Every day life, even the fun things we do, hardly ever flows without a hitch.  I was recalling a hike Mark and I did back when we were dating.  We were going to hike up Tiger Mountain near Issaquah, which, if you are familiar with this area, you know is riddled with a labyrinth of trails and roads.  Well, we were not going to go the easy way. Armed with a topographic map, we were going to go the way less traveled and start at a little used trail off of the Issaquah-Hobart road.  Well, it was little used all right—so little used we couldn’t find it.  At one dead end, as we turned the car around, the back wheels slipped into a ditch of water and we couldn’t get out.  In this time before the widespread use of cell phones, we had to walk to the nearest house to call my dad to bring his truck and pull us out.  After getting the car out we tried another road.  The topo map was very clear that this was the route.  We parked and headed up hill.  What the map didn’t indicate was that we had to cross private property.  If the large, barking dogs that greeted us didn’t let us know that was the case then the owner carrying a pistol certainly did.  When he discovered we were just hapless hikers he kindly pointed us in the right direction—back to our car.  At this point, we just headed for one of the standard Tiger Mountain roads.  But, of course, we weren’t going to use the standard trail head. Once again, using our trusty topo map, we set off bushwhacking our way across the wilderness, finally hitting one of the main trails.  Typical of our fortunes on this day, a large party on horseback had just gone up before us leaving trail nice and soft--soft to the point of poor footing.  We finally straggled to the top, and, you guessed it, we were fogged in.  Now, if you at all recall my fireworks story from several weeks ago, you might see a trend here for my life—and, you would be right:  when I plan things I do tend to end up in a fog. On top of this lack of view from the mountain top, when we got back to the car the battery was dead.  I’ll refrain from an allegory on my life with that one.

So, what is my point?  That usually in life we have to work for what is worthwhile.  We never did see the view that day, but we did get something more—Mark and I grew together in adversity.  My dad always says that the fact Mark and I persevered and didn’t turn on each other through all of that made him realize we had what it took for the long haul.

Now, when it comes to volunteering at church some of us are in it for the long haul, but some of us might just want to help out short term or for a special occasion.  Unlike in marriage, that’s a perfectly fine option!  On behalf of the Stewardship Committee, I want to thank those of you who are already volunteering, however much, and also those of you even thinking about volunteering.  You should have received, or will shortly receive, a mailing that will give you the opportunity to explore ways in which you might find your place in service to our church family.

In your quest to volunteer your time for church I don’t think you are going to meet barking dogs or pistol packing property owners.  But, you might not get a call back when you expect one.  Or, you might start in a service you think you should participate in and then realize you are in a fog and not where you could serve most effectively.  But, don’t give up.  Even the false starts, dead ends, and clouded views lead us to where we are supposed to be.  If God is nudging you to give your time to a ministry at Holy Rosary, don’t be discouraged by the idea that nobody cares or that some inner circle is running the show. Call and call again.  E-mail and e-mail again.  Or just corner one of us already involved in ministry after Mass. God has a place for you; He will find a way to open the door to it—you just have to take the initiative to walk through.

Thank you!