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    Return to the Middle
    Return to the Middle
    Return to the Middle
    Ebook122 pages1 hour

    Return to the Middle

    By Scott Berry, Sr

    ()

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    About this ebook

    A Pencil

    We all have them. They're cheap. If we break one, it's no big deal. If we break two . . . it's still no big deal.

    Raymond didn't have one.

    ****

    A Globe

    Every classroom has one. We touched them in grade school. We spun them really fast when the teacher wasn't watching.

    Ms. Maribel didn't have one.

    ***

    A Pair of Shoes

    We get our first pair before we can even walk. Most of us have three or four pairs. Some of us have fifty or more.

    Kathleen didn't have one.

    ***

    A Mission

    Most of us don't have one. We don't have a clue what God would have us do. We don't even know where to start.

    Scott found one.

    ***

    Scott didn't set out to find a mission. He was just trying to do something "good". He had struggled for years, trying to the right thing, trying to find God's will -- be he was unsuccessful. He was on the edge of giving up -- really on the edge. He tried one more time -- he looked for God to open a door, and when God did, Scott walked through it.

    Return to the Middle is Scott's story -- it's a story about struggle and about success. Most importantly, it's about looking for the doors God opens and then finding the courage to step through them, regardless of what is waiting on the other side.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherScott Berry, Sr
    Release dateFeb 27, 2013
    ISBN9781301386383
    Return to the Middle
    Author

    Scott Berry, Sr

    Scott Berry is a writer, educator, and missionary. While much of his work is done as a ghostwriter, he sometimes takes time to write his own stories or poems. His ghostwriting work includes several science fiction/fantasy novels, full-length movie scripts, scripts for animated children's television programs, children's plays, and even some full length musicals.Scott lives near Albuquerque, New Mexico, with his wife, Zella, and their new dog, Tanner. Shortly after getting Tanner from a local pet rescue shelter, Scott decided to write some simple stories about their new terrier. He honestly didn't expect the stories to have such an immediate mass appeal. Because of the interest in the "Tanner the Tenacious Terrier" series, Scott is planning on writing several more of the popular tales. Scott is also a missionary to the Philippines province of Bohol. He had visited Bohol several years ago and fell in love with the people and the culture -- and especially the children. One of his biggest concerns there is that over half of the children are unable to go to school because they don't have basic school supplies. Scott has taken on the project of providing backpacks, pencils, paper, shoes, and uniforms. In 2013, he gave out enough supplies to send 250 children to school His goal for 2014 is 800 children. You can visit his mission website at www.EducateBohol.org

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      Book preview

      Return to the Middle - Scott Berry, Sr

      Return To The Middle

      by Scott P. Berry

      Smashwords Edition

      Copyright 2013 Educate Bohol, Inc.

      www.EducateBohol.org

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. Also, the proceeds from this book go to support the ministry of Educate: Bohol, Inc., a 501(c)3 public charity. Purchasing additional copies helps us support the educational needs of children in Bohol and other regions of the Philippines.

      ~~~~

      This book is dedicated to my wife, Zella. She put up with me throughout all of it, even when she would have preferred that I stayed at home and found a real job.

      ~~~~

      Preface

      It's interesting to see what challenges life offers us. In mid-2011, I would have never contemplated that I would have the experiences that I was going to have in 2012. I never thought that I would be writing a book about them, either.

      This story is one person's experience – mine. Many others have probably had similar experiences. Perhaps it is something that all of us will experience if we allow God to lead us. And there it is, the crux of the entire story – allowing God to show things to us, watching for the doors he opens, and, the most critical element of them all, being willing to trust Him enough to go through the doors He has opened. It's not really that difficult.

      Perhaps the difficult part is being willing to trust Him and being willing to give up life as we know it. That may sound peculiar, but the scriptures

      do say that we are to 'take up our cross and follow' Him. When we do that, when we truly do that, life as we currently are living it will change. Sometimes we find ourselves just a little too comfortable – we give 'mouth service' to our commitment to serving God, but when it comes down to actually moving on that professed commitment, we fall very short of the mark. Sadly, there are many who either don't recognize that this is what's happening, or they do but don't care.

      So this is the story of my own personal experience of walking through an open door. It is full of ups and downs, just as life is for most of us. Some of the downs were rather disheartening, but many of the ups have served as a tremendous blessing. Perhaps a key point to note here is that, just as we can't appreciate light unless there is darkness, we also can't appreciate the blessings if we don't have problems with which to compare them. ~ S. Berry

      ~~~~

      Foreword

      Return to the Middle expresses the journey of a man who has heard from God and how God desires to keep hearing from that man.

      Scott Berry’s life is not unlike many in the church. He did what they asked him to do and more. He engaged in Christ’s mission best he knew how. Yet something was amiss.

      His industrious nature waned into lacking the spiritual energy to do anything. He knew it, his family knew and more importantly his God knew.

      So, Scott committed himself to ‘going wherever God wanted him to go’ with an international missions group and landed in the Philippines.

      He, like most who experience a mission trip, was struck at the heart of what we can accomplish for Christ's mission today. Yet, God was also working on the man.

      God’s love walked Scott through the Philippines and the foreign territories of his own heart. What he experienced and discovered are in these pages.

      When asked to write the foreword, I immediately thought of our time together shortly after his first trip. He was so filled with resolve.

      Scott’s eyes expressed it all.

      His eyes told more of a story then his lips could speak. His eyes reflected the workings of God. Beyond all his ideas, his planning, and his requests for support. I experienced the eyes of a man who saw something new and was being transformed.

      Return to the Middle tells the story with words of what you can see in Scott’s eyes.

      Tom Caffery

      Albuquerque, New Mexico

      ~~~~

      Table of Contents

      Introduction

      Chapter 1: Starting in the Middle

      Chapter 2: Falling Down

      Chapter 3: Testing Faith

      Chapter 4: Building Faith

      Chapter 5: Living in Faith

      Chapter 6: Unexpected Results

      Chapter 7: Side Trips

      Chapter 8: A Place Called Datag

      Chapter 9: Return to the Middle

      Chapter 10: A Personal Mission

      About the Author

      ~~~~

      Introduction

      Some may find it peculiar that my story beings in what I call the middle. But by beginning in the middle, I’m hoping that you will get a sense of why I’m telling the story in the first place. Perhaps it’s a literary device that has been worn out by countless mystery writers or by renowned commentators – Paul Harvey and his the rest of the story series comes to mind.

      Once you’ve had a chance to see what I consider the middle of my story, you’ll get the chance to go back in time, to see why my story is important, at least to me. It requires that I let people see some of my ‘dirty laundry’ and that I share some personal history that is less than flattering. It all comes together in the end.

      ~~~~

      Chapter 1: Starting in the Middle

      I was ankle deep in mud, trying to brush away disease-carrying mosquitoes that seemed to be fascinated with my exposed legs, arms and face. I had a 30 pound concrete construction block in each hand, which made swatting at nasty bugs just a little difficult. The tropical conditions on the Philippines island of Bohol were offering me some challenges that I'd never had to deal with before. The bugs were one thing, and the daily rain storms that deluged the countryside were another. And then there was the heat – relentless and disinterested in my personal discomfort.

      I was on a short-term mission trip to the Philippines with an organization whose main purpose was to construct church buildings for deserving and needy congregations. Now I’m not a construction guy. I’m a former high school special education teacher who was just trying to do something that was good for other people. The situation I found myself in was surreal. For those of you who have never been in a third world country before, let me sum it up by saying, life there is truly different.

      I didn’t have a real assignment there. I could essentially come and go as I pleased, although I fully intended on staying with the work crew. There were six Americans representing the mission organization including myself. There were also several local congregational members working on the project, along with at least a dozen pastors from other churches throughout the region. Some of these pastors had travelled from as far as northern Luzon, above Manila, some 800 miles away. Bohol is a medium-sized island in the central region of the Philippines archipelago just north of Mindinao.

      When we arrived in the town of Sierra Bullones in the central mountains of Bohol, the foundation of the building had already been poured. The majority of the building supplies had already been delivered, including stack upon stack of ‘hollow block’ – what we in the US would call cinder block or concrete block. There were piles of sand and rock dumped on tarps right on the ground. Some of the Filipinos were busy sifting the sand using a hand- held sieve. Two of them would man the sieve while a third one would shovel sand onto it. The sifted sand would fall onto a tarp on the ground and then be scooped into either buckets or burlap bags to be hauled over to the workers

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