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December 2024

Change has never been something that caused me anxiety. I am a person who is equally fine with consistency and with the unknown. One of our sons is stationed in Germany with the USAF and was preparing for a deployment which was going to last close to when it will be time for him to return to the states. He asked me if I would go to Baltimore to get a car from a ship and drive it home to Indiana for him – a 1996 rally car, right-hand drive, manual transmission, everything in metric and Japanese. I said yes … and last month we went on a great adventure East and brought the car home. I mention this because we are about to enter a season of change here at the Lighthouse, and to be honest I am excited about what is in store.

Over the course of the last few years here at the Lighthouse, we have seen two things happening: first, it has been getting harder to recruit folks to join the team than ever before. I know this is for a variety of reasons, some cultural, some personal, some spiritual, and some I’m sure I do not understand, but regardless, the result has been that our team size has been consistently getting smaller. And because our core team has pretty much been with us from the beginning fourteen years ago, the average age of our current Lighthouse staff is 56. Secondly, the needs of the students we serve has radically changed, so many of them show up on Wednesdays quite literally relationally starving.

The best way I can describe it is to go back to our trip East. While waiting on the car to arrive, we spent a few days in Washington DC. One of the days we took a brisk seven mile walk around the national mall, visiting all the monuments. I felt compelled to go to the Lincoln Memorial, where I read the following from Lincoln’s second inaugural speech, “One eighth of the whole population were colored slaves not distributed generally over the union but localized in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen perpetuate and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union even by war while the government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with or even before the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God’s assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces but let us judge not that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered ~ that of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes.” He finishes his speech with the following, “With malice toward none with charity for all with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right let us strive on to finish the work we are in.”

The Lord used those words to say many things to my heart. But the overwhelming message to me was from the end – “let us strive to finish”. Oh man, did I need that encouragement spoken in the context of war. For the rest of the day all I could think about was what does “finishing” look like. We have been so encouraged to regularly have students declare that they want to completely surrender to Jesus and live for him. In September we had an evening where eight students were baptized, they all invited their families, parents and grandparents were there, it was a wonderful evening. Those baptized were asked to respond publicly to the following statements – making it ultra clear what their intentions were:

    1. Do you believe that Jesus is the son of God, that he was sent from heaven to earth to live and die on our behalf, to pay the price for our sin, and that he rose back to life as promised and then returned back to his father God and is now waiting for us to join him?
    2. Do you today publicly declare that you have decided to commit your life to following Jesus, surrendering your will to make him Lord of your life, and to obeying his instructions for life as much as you understand them?
    3. Is it your intention, as you grow in maturity, wisdom, and understanding, to obey God in all areas of your life, in whatever he asks of you, trusting that he will always be a good and faithful father to you personally?

Here’s the thing, even though I really do believe that these students really want the life that God ordained for them, actually being different in the right ways is crazy hard. All they know is that their spirits are aching for something and therefore they are going to grasp for whatever they can to satisfy that. What struck me after reading Lincoln’s words was this – for us here at the Lighthouse, “finishing” is to be ultra focused on showing students how to live free from slavery. The emancipation proclamation issued by Lincoln in 1863 declared “that all persons held as slaves are, and henceforward shall be free.” The number one question for freed slaves after that was, “What do we do now? All we know is how to be slaves,” especially since society was structured against their freedom.

So, that is what the next season of Lighthouse is going to be about, showing ex-slaves how to live free. This is going to require more people who are willing to invest in the lives of students. Our number one need right now is people, specifically people who have found freedom. We need people who believe in the call that Paul gave in Galatians 5, “You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love.” We need people who are ready to serve.

We are still working out the details, because things have gotten to the point where we can no longer sustain our current way of gathering and consistently meet our commitment to the community that the Lighthouse is a safe place for children. Therefore, this month is the end of our Lighthouse Connect weekly gatherings, in the “come one come all” open group gatherings like we’ve been doing. For January and February 2025 there will be no Lighthouse gatherings. We are planning on restarting in March 2025 with hopefully some fresh (and younger) team members and inspired ideas on how to meet the call to “finish”. In the meantime, we are partnering with Maconaquah to offer “COPE2Thrive” a program they started teaching this fall to help students develop skills for responding to anxiety, stress, and depression. More details about this in a separate flyer.

Thank you for continuing to trust us this year. Your faithfulness in financial support allowed us to finally finish our building project, joining the old house with the new building and giving the house a full facelift. We still have much to do. If you are interested in helping, if you want to invest in the future and you love kids (especially middle-schoolers) – please consider this opportunity. If you would like to come checkout the Lighthouse and hear more about what we are doing, you can contact me directly at chris@LHBH.org and 765-271-6687. I would love to tell you our story. If you would like to help by sending a donation, you can mail it to The Lighthouse, PO Box 336, Bunker Hill, IN 46914. You can also give electronically via the link on our website, LHBH.org

Merry Christmas! I hope that 2025 will be a great year of starting, finishing, and freedom for you too.

Gratefully serving,

Chris Edgington, Director

PS: We are closing out the year with a Christmas party and Christmas concert by Jamie Kimmett on Sunday Decemer 15, 6p – 8p.

Enjoy this photo of Ava enjoying some cuddles from Charleigh the Lighthouse dog.