Friendship House is a Christian based sobriety house for men in South Portland, Maine.  Each summer for the past severl years, they have had me over to do a show for their residents.  This summer, my wife joined me and ran our music for the first time since we switched from CDs to i-pod.  (She did this perfectly, by the way.)

We got their early and set up out in their parking lot.  Herb Blake, the director, met us their and told us we could probably start early if we wanted to.  This is always a blessing when needing to travel home after dark.  Once set up, we had bagged suppers in their garden and warmed up before the men came out.

What struck me most about this show is how much the men wanted to bless us.  From one gentleman offering us sparkling water when we first arrived to helping us pick up our props when we finished, it was a great example of serving each other rather than us coming in and being the 'givers' and the audience being the 'recievers'.  The best thing, perhaps, was when they told us they had an abundance of gallons of bottled water.  We, in turn, have been having problems with sulfer in our well.  We brought six gallons home.

As for the show itself, I think we blessed them with an hour of Gospel juggling and magic.  Since it was outdoors, I was able to do a lot of fire juggling, including my brand new fire balls!  What a hit they were.  I left them with a message built around my hand guillotine routine.  It has to do with Jesus hyperbolic statement, "If your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off!"  It was clear that God used this message to challenge these men in their pursuit of recovery.