Nate the Great

For those of you who don't know, this is my cousin Nathan. (Sorry ladies, he's married to a wonderful gal and has two little ones. I know the questions would start flooding in after seeing the wonderful picture.) Nathan is in town this weekend for the National Missionary Convention because he is currently working for Pioneer Bible Translators as one of their recruiters. So lucky for me I got to hang out with him a bit today and catch up.

God definitely broke the mold after He made Nathan and I mean that in the very best of ways. Nathan is one of my cousins on my mom's side of the family so we didn't see him as much because he grew up in Missouri and Illinois. But every summer we would make the family trek out to that part of the midwest and for at least one week each year we got to "bond."

I have some pretty fun memories of Nathan. I can remember us playing baseball and him having to throw off his hat every time he ran to first like it would help him get there faster. The funny part was he would always stop before he got to base though and run back and get the hat. One summer, I'm guessing Nathan was in 5th grade, the Smothers Brothers show came back on the air. We were all sitting there watching it and Grandma was remembering back when they had their first variety show when everything was still black and white. Nathan loved it so much that he looked over at Grandma and told her it was too bad she hadn't recorded those so we could watch them as well. And just let me tell you the boy can do an impression of Matt Foley Motivational Speaker like no other.

This visit was pretty much like the rest. He acted like a goof ball and made me laugh, but that wasn't the best part of it for me. The best part for me was watching him in action doing his job and then hearing him talk about it. Like I said before he is one of the recruiters for PBT and I think they're pretty lucky to have him. While waiting for him to take a break I watched him talk with person after person (until he was getting pretty hoarse) about the their lives and how God was working in them. I watched him engage with them, not just to push PBT, but to really help them search out where God was calling them. And when he finally did get a break and we were able to go grab some dinner I watched his eyes light up when he was telling me what an awesome time he was having that day. I heard the pure excitement in his voice as he talked about the possibilities that lay ahead. And, even now, just thinking back to it I smile.

There are very few people that I see that passionate and excited about their job. And there are fewer still that I see that excited and passionate about ministry which is just sad. Nathan is one of those few though, mainly because God called him to it and he was obedient. Really there is nothing more to say than that, oh and the fact that I'm incredibly proud of him.