Phil

July 17, 2022

Charis

In honor of our musical this year, The Case of the Pink Flamingo, I would like to introduce a very important member of our team:

Phil.

Phil joined the team a long time ago, in the 2010s, and was used in a musical before any of us joined KidzAblaze. Only Pastor Randy and a few of his adult team remember his first appearance in our musicals.

In the 2020 year, however, Phil made a comeback and played the role of a deadly vaporizer in our musical The Revengers, and again in the 2021 year. This year, however, he is the most important character in our musical: The Pink Flamingo. He plays the part of a tragically stolen artifact symbolizing world peace that tragically becomes a device used to spread deadly gases. Only after Inspector Klutzo saves the day is Phil's reputation restored. and by the end of the last scene every kid and team member has a miniature Phil to take home!

So if you were wondering why our shirts have flamingoes on it, and why some members are wearing flamingo socks, that is why: to honor our beloved Phil.

We can actually learn something from flamingoes. Did you know flamingoes aren't naturally pink? In fact, their chicks are born white! To become pink, these birds have to dunk their head upside down into the lake water, then slowly sift back and forth. Their beaks then catch the brine shrimp, tiny shrimp, in the water. When they eat enough brine shrimp, they turn pink! So if you ask Phil, "Do you like the shrimp?" Don't be surprised if says "Of course!!" rather than "Bleh".

In some ways we are like those flamingoes. Just as their feathers reflect what they eat, so what we consume affects what others see in us. Proverbs 4:23 (NIV) says, "Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it."

This is why it really is important to guard what we let enter our hearts. When something enters our head that we know dishonors God, we have a choice: we can let it linger and meditate on it, or we can push it away. I've struggled with this lately, but I've found once I train myself to push away bad thoughts, it gets easier and easier to keep the good ones in and the bad out. And just like it takes time for the flamingoes to turn pink, and they need lots of krill, for us it'll take time and lots of Jesus. When we try, though, we'll eventually find ourselves reflecting Jesus through "beautiful pink feathers" to those around us!

Thanks for the lessons, Phil!!