Mueller Iron Foundry

 

I went to work for Mueller iron foundry in 1972.  My first position was on the Mold Master, a complicated machine that took nine men to operate and a whole fleet of maintenance workers on third shift and on the weekends to repair.  With hot iron, sand moldings, shaking out castings, the Mold Master was always breaking down.  And when it did, management became nervous.  Hundreds of dollars per hour was sitting idle.  On my first day on the job, when the Mold Master broke down, I thought I had a break.  But not so, I soon found out.  All of the idle men picked up brooms and began to sweep up sand.  I learned to keep busy too.  With two or three bosses running around trying to resolve the problem, the last thing that they wanted to see was a worker sitting down doing nothing.  The foreman didn’t care what I was doing as long as I was just busy.  You see, Mueller Company didn’t pay me to do nothing.  Hey, as Christians, we have responsibilities too.  We are saved by grace, plus nothing and minus nothing, but after we are saved, the Lord expects us to work with Him fulfilling His mission on earth.  Paul said in Ephesians 2:10, “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.”  God expects us to be busy about His business: converting sinners, making them into disciples, and teaching them to be teachers.  Are you serving God?  Hey, get with His program!  Serve the Lord!

Be Kind

 

These are difficult times that we are living in.  There is anger on both sides of the political spectrum.  There were more people who voted this time than ever before, and many for the wrong reason.  Many voters were not voting “for” a candidate as much as they were voting “against” the other candidate.  I have a dear friend who is a referee.  He always collects his check at half-time because he has to run for his car at the end of the game.  No matter how he calls the game, half of the crowd is mad at him at the end of the game.  Did you know that the word “nice” is not in the Bible?  But the word “kind” often is.  Christians are commanded by God to be “kind”, not only to brothers, but to people of the world.  We may have heart-felt opinions, but we are commanded by God to be kind in expressing those opinions to others.  No one has ever been brow-beaten into becoming a Christian, but many people have seen the kindness of Christians under pressure and wanted to be like them.  Paul said in Ephesians 4:32, “And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you.”  Has God forgiven you?  Then you should forgive others.  Has God been kind to you?  Then you should be kind to others.  It is simple yet profound: be kind one to another.

Translating in Iasi

 

In 1993 I took a group of Americans to Romania to distribute New Testaments that we had purchased and shipped in by truck.  The Scriptures arrived in Iasi, Romania on the same day that we arrived, and we were able to help unload them.  Pastor Dino Pope and several of his church members helped us with the unloading.  The truck was driven by two Czech drivers who spoke neither English nor Romanian.  They did speak German, and one of the church members who were helping us unload the trailer spoke German.  So, when I wanted to ask one of the truck drivers a question, I spoke to Pastor Dino, who translated it into Romanian for his church member, who translated it into German for the Czech driver.  The Czech driver then answered the question in German, which the Romanian church member translated into Romanian for Pastor Dino, who translated it into English for me!  Wow!  It took two extra people and three languages, but we could communicate.  What confusion was done at the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11:9, “Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the LORD did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the LORD scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.”  God had a purpose in confounding the languages at Babel.  But God also gives many people the gift of languages.  I’m glad that we can just communicate.