Allergies to Accolades
Matthew Nisly is one of our current Sunday School superintendents. When it's his turn to lead the opening meditation for our Sunday morning service, I marvel at what he offers us. This former high school student, who passed through four years of life with us very quietly, without giving many hints of being eager to lead, now gets up in front of several hundred people regularly and speaks profound things eloquently. Here is a devotional from last month, on the tension between living wholeheartedly here and longing for heaven, our true home. This morning's devotional is not yet available online, but I'd listen to it again right now if it were.
Matthew is a young husband and father, and an aspiring Bible translator. Sometime this year, he plans to begin the arduous process of preparing himself academically for such a life work.
As a toddler, Matthew had food allergies that left him miserable much of the time. I remember hearing his mother say she was tempted to tell his doctor in his office that she was staying "right here, until you figure out what's wrong with him." At some point, milk and beef were discovered to be his trigger foods for adverse reactions, and he became a much happier child when those were avoided.
In a family with some "whiz kids," Matthew was a plodder--doing one right thing after another, and eventually getting it all done reasonably well. He became capable through commendable diligence.
As a young adult, Matthew worked in an orphanage in El Salvador for a year or two, and then came home and courted and married Andrea Mast, who had spent the latter years of her childhood with her family in El Salvador. The only other employment he's ever had, to my knowledge, is working in his father's business, Nisly Trash Service.
Matthew is a role model worth following, for his faithfulness in doing well the mundane things that life requires, for overcoming obstacles with dogged determination, and for seeking to serve others as God directs. Not every person on their way to greatness travels this route, but I venture a guess that it's a way of few regrets, and some of its benefits are already obvious. God bless Matthew, Andrea, and little Jamien.
Matthew is a young husband and father, and an aspiring Bible translator. Sometime this year, he plans to begin the arduous process of preparing himself academically for such a life work.
As a toddler, Matthew had food allergies that left him miserable much of the time. I remember hearing his mother say she was tempted to tell his doctor in his office that she was staying "right here, until you figure out what's wrong with him." At some point, milk and beef were discovered to be his trigger foods for adverse reactions, and he became a much happier child when those were avoided.
In a family with some "whiz kids," Matthew was a plodder--doing one right thing after another, and eventually getting it all done reasonably well. He became capable through commendable diligence.
As a young adult, Matthew worked in an orphanage in El Salvador for a year or two, and then came home and courted and married Andrea Mast, who had spent the latter years of her childhood with her family in El Salvador. The only other employment he's ever had, to my knowledge, is working in his father's business, Nisly Trash Service.
Matthew is a role model worth following, for his faithfulness in doing well the mundane things that life requires, for overcoming obstacles with dogged determination, and for seeking to serve others as God directs. Not every person on their way to greatness travels this route, but I venture a guess that it's a way of few regrets, and some of its benefits are already obvious. God bless Matthew, Andrea, and little Jamien.
posted by Mrs. I (Miriam Iwashige) at
8:20 PM
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