Sermon Title: So Where Do We Go From Here?

Sermon Text: Luke 1:26-38

Sermon Date: December 14, 2008, Third Sunday of Advent

Five-figure bonuses stun plant workers

Owners of ball bearings company reward workers for years of service

The Associated Press

updated 2:00 p.m. ET, Sun., Nov. 30, 2008

CHICAGO - Dave Tiderman wondered if the decimal point was in the wrong place when he opened his $35,000 company bonus. Jose Rojas saw his $10,000 check and thought, "That can't be right."

Valentin Dima watched co-workers breaking down in tears over their bonus checks and didn't trust his emotions. He drove home first, then opened his envelope: $33,000.

Year-end bonuses are rare these days. Rarer still is what the Spungen family, owners of a ball bearings company in Waukegan, Ill., about 40 miles north of Chicago, did as they sold the business.

They gave out whopping thank-you bonuses.

A total of $6.6 million is being shared by just 230 employees of Waukegan-based Peer Bearing Co., with facilities in England and the United States. Amounts varied and were based on years of service.

"They treated us like extended family," said Maria Dima, who works at Peer Bearing along with her husband, Valentin, and received a somewhat smaller check than he did. "We won the lottery."

With $100 million in sales last year, Peer recently was acquired by a Swedish company for an undisclosed amount. Danny Spungen, whose grandfather founded the company in 1941, said it was a unanimous family decision to thank employees with the bonuses.

Laurence and Florence Spungen and their four children decided on a bonus formula a year before the sale closed to SKF Group, "a gamble that we would come out OK as well," Danny Spungen said.

He and other family members signed, by hand, two thank-you cards to each employee, one in Spanish and one in English. Each card was printed with all the workers' names and the years they were hired. The text expressed gratitude for "the loyalty and hard work of our employees over the years."

The new owners intend to operate Peer as a wholly owned subsidiary. Workers have been told that most will keep their jobs, and life at the company hasn't changed much since the party in mid-September when the bonuses were distributed.

Incongruously, the bonuses coincided with the U.S. economic meltdown. While neighbors and friends faced new financial strains, the Peer employees could breathe easier.

"I know people who work for corporate America are not going to get treated like that. And most of the family owned businesses are not going to treat you like that," Tiderman said. "This is something that just really doesn't happen."

How is the next boss going to top that one? Where do you go from here?

Tuition paid for valedictorian in legal limbo
John Koopman, Chronicle Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 6, 2008

The future looked bleak for 17-year-old Arthur Mkoyan a couple of weeks ago.

A 4.0 student and the valedictorian at his high school in Fresno, Arthur had lost his chance to study chemistry at UC Davis this year because of immigration problems involving his father, who had come to the United States more than 16 years ago. He wasn't sure if he would stay in the States, get deported or ever finish his education.

Until Sherry Heacox stepped in.

The Danville resident saw a story about Arthur's plight in The Chronicle in July and decided to help him out. She's going to pay for him to go to UC Davis for four years.

"I didn't believe it at first," Arthur said. "I thought it was a joke."

No joke. Heacox said she stewed over the article for several days, frustrated and angry over a situation that seemed so hopeless for the young man. She wondered why no one would step forward and help this young man who had so much to offer his adopted land.

And then, a thought came to her.

"Sometimes you have to put your money where your mouth is," she said.

Education isn't cheap. The university estimates the annual cost for an undergraduate student, with in-state tuition, to be about $25,000.

It's not as if this will be easy for the Heacox family. Heacox runs a food-importing business and her husband, Hank, is an engineer. The couple just got done paying for their daughter's education at UC Santa Barbara. Heacox didn't want to say how much she intended to pay for Arthur's education, other than to say she will pick up the tab for everything: tuition, fees, books, room and board.

"This isn't Bill Gates we're talking about," she said. "It's not as if the money won't be missed."

Arthur's parents fled Armenia in 1991 after his father, Ruben Mkoian (father and son spell their surname differently), exposed corruption at the government office where he worked; the family's house was burned down and a shop they owned was ransacked.

Mkoian and his family settled in Fresno and Mkoian applied for asylum. Seven years later, his claim was denied, and he appealed all the way to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. The court turned him down this year, saying he had failed to establish a "well-founded fear of persecution" if he returned to Armenia.

In April, federal immigration authorities detained Arthur's father and prepared to deport him. His mother was allowed to remain free to care for Arthur and his 12-year-old, U.S.-born brother until the date of their departure.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., heard about the family's case and, on the very day of Arthur's commencement, and just days before the family's scheduled deportation, introduced a private bill in the U.S. Senate that led to Mkoian's release after two months in detention and could grant the family lawful permanent residence.

Such bills rarely pass - an estimated 3 percent are approved - but as long as the legislation is pending, the removal order remains suspended, which gives Arthur and his family a temporary reprieve that could last a couple of years.

While the issue of deportation remains alive, the family is hopeful - and amazed that someone would make such a generous offer of help.

"She is a wonderful, wonderful lady," said Arthur's mother, Asmik Karapetian. "When she called us to say she wanted to pay, we couldn't believe it. Arthur was jumping for joy. This is like a dream come true."

Heacox said she decided to help Arthur because she doesn't like how his family was treated. "We're all immigrants," she said. "Some of us just got here earlier than others."

She also supports education, she said, and Arthur's plight struck her deeply.

"Anyone who is willing to study hard and get an education - especially in the sciences - ought to have the chance to do so," she said.

And then, too, there was a desire to do something special, something worthwhile. To make a difference in the life of another human being.

"I don't want to be one of the people in life where the best thing I did on this earth was die off," she said.

New-student orientation is on Sunday. Arthur and his parents will be there.

And so will Sherry Heacox.

CORRECTION: This story incorrectly stated that the family of a high school student trying to go to UC Davis had come to the United States illegally. The Mkoian family entered the country on a tourist visa and applied for asylum, which was denied. A deportation order then was issued.

Will he ever get another gift to top that one? Where do you go from here?

Mary and Joseph were average, everyday people. Engaged couple, and expectant parents of the Messiah. They know this. And someday soon Mary will give birth, not in a sterile delivery room but the warmth of the animals instead, which is why New Testament scholar Dr. Bill Hertzog says that it wasn’t an insult to be put in the stable, but a blessing.

Eventually they will move into a home or maybe share a home with family and within two years some astronomers from the East will come bearing gifts, like gold, frankincense and myrrh. And with today’s gold worth over $800 an ounce, that is one welcome baby gift!

Joseph will have yet another dream telling him that Herod is looking for the toddler Jesus and they should get out of town. They will move to Egypt and stay until, in another dream, an angels tells Joseph that Herod is dead and they can move back home now.

Where do you go from here? They been living like people in a witness relocation program and now they can go back home and move in public, around the family and friends they left – those who questioned Mary’s pregnancy, those who stood beside them, those grandparents anxious to watch their grandchild grow up.

I’m thinking that it wasn’t easy for them. We don’t know how they lived or what they thought. We know little about Jesus’ childhood or their living arrangements. We know nothing about Joseph after the story in the second chapter of Luke where Joseph has taken his family to the Feast of the Passover when Jesus was twelve. Mary is mentioned later, but Joseph is never mentioned again. Scripture says they have other children but we don’t know much really.

I’m also thinking that this was an amazing time for them though. It had to a time of daily revelations because when you have children, that is just part of life. Watching your child discover new things, whether his toes, catching a ball or the ability to be logical, is an eye-opening experience. Put on top of that that your child is to be the Messiah, well, I’m just assuming that there were some amazing times for this family.

Isn’t that life though? Good and bad. Joy and frustration. Days when the all is well and others when everything you touch breaks.

We love stories like the ones I read earlier because they give us hope that if this good stuff could happen to them, maybe it will happen to us but if we are honest, we know that most of us won’t experience those mind-blowing moments.

We will however have many, many others to experience. Each day we have the opportunity to ask ourselves, “where do I go from here?’

Every day we wake up with twenty-four hours in front of us and it really is up to us to make something happen, except when the stomach flu took over this past week.

But you know, even in that, even when we are dealing with sickness, we still have 24 hours with which to do something. During my frequent trips to the bathroom I kept reminding myself that this most likely wouldn’t last forever. For me, that is step up from being miserable all day about having to change my plans and the lost time. I can be miserable or I can accept the current situation, particularly when there really isn’t much I can do about it.

But what if the stakes are a lot higher? What if you’ve lost your job or your marriage falls apart? What if your bills keep getting higher instead of lower? What if your child is heading for disaster, listening to no one? What if cancer strikes again? What if you lose a parent or friend or spouse?

Where do you go from here?

How about going to the same place you go when the good things happen. If you can thank God for the good stuff that falls in your lap, you can ask God for help when life gets to be too much?

I realize that isn’t the usual kind of warm and fuzzy Christmas sermon one usually hears this time of year but this year seems to have been a hard one in a lot of ways. We’ve lost loved ones. The economy is hurting all of us. People we know are sick or we ourselves are sick. We’ve been disappointed by people we love and let’s be honest, we’ve done some disappointing ourselves.

But we’ve also seen a lot of sunrises this year, we’ve seen lovely summer days and the green buds of spring. We’ve seen the leaves turn from green to golden red. We’ve seen the crisp days of winter enfold us as we open our closet doors and take out warm winter clothing and sleep in warm and comfortable beds. We’ve been taken care of by friends and loved ones when we hurt. We’ve been listened to by friends who never mention to us that they’ve heard this story again and again.

We’ve had people sit beside us in our grief and dance with us over new jobs and new babies. We’ve had 348 days this year to see and do some amazing things, just like Mary and Joseph did.

On Friday night if you looked outside you saw the largest moon we’ve seen for 15 years. It really was a sight to behold. Some of us saw it on our way to the Coppoc’s home for the Builder’s Christmas party. Some of us saw it as we prepared for LUM Jubilee Christmas. Some of us just took the time to stand outside and look at this incredible gift.

I hope that whether your “where do I go from here” is exciting or dreadful, you will stop and think about the many gifts that have come into your life this year.

Yesterday at Jubilee Christmas, Meredith Wilkinson Browand said that one of the women broke down talking of how hard this year had been for them. Her husband lost his job and when her mother lost her job, she moved in with them and she was currently the only one working and supporting them all. And still she found comfort and gratitude in coming to our church to pick out gifts for her children so that they would have Christmas this year.

We spend about $30 a child and then another $35 on food for each family. We helped 20 families with about 50 children. If you can’t think of any good thing that happened to you this year, maybe you’ll think about the wonderful thing that happened here yesterday and the part you played in it. Maybe you wrote a check or bought a gift. Maybe you made cookies or cocoa. Maybe you hosted a family and wrapped gifts. Maybe you prayed for the families who came here. Or maybe next year will be the year you join in the wonderful day.

Where do we go from here? If nothing is impossible with God, the sky is the limit.