Best Laid Plans

A weeklong retreat at the Timothy Center brings about one hundred young people from two rival Oswald Heights gangs together under a fragile truce. On the final night, Jason Whittaker is supposed to give the major closing presentation about his missionary journeys. A severe rainstorm delays him, leaving Connie and Tom worried about keeping both groups peaceful in the same auditorium.

Tom hears that a missing pair of sunglasses has revived tension between Tony, leader of the Ravens, and Leslie, whose street name is Too Large. Both boys claim their gang will honor the truce, yet each hints that scores may be settled later. Tom reminds them that the week's lessons about Jesus concern love and peace outside the Timothy Center as well as inside it.

A tree branch crashes through a kitchen window, forcing Tom to leave and organize repairs. He puts Connie in charge of the assembled crowd. She has none of Jason's photographs or presentation and no idea how to entertain a hundred restless gang members. Prayer, announcements, songs, and a talent show all seem to fail.

Jason's car, meanwhile, is stuck in mud along a flooded back road. He walks to a nearby house and asks to use the telephone. Ten-year-old Josh wisely refuses to admit a stranger while his mother is away but agrees to call the Timothy Center and Whit's End. The center's phones are down, and Eugene cannot collect Jason quickly because a bridge is out.

Josh's mother, Amy, arrives after her own car breaks down. She lets Jason wait indoors and gives him hot chocolate. Jason learns that her husband, David, has died and that she now expects Josh to be the man of the family. The boy's maturity has grown partly from necessity, though he still longs for the ordinary time and attention of a father.

Josh asks Jason for help building a model airplane. Distracted by his missing ride and important engagement, Jason keeps looking out the window and almost abandons the project. Josh explains that his father was also distracted by telephone calls and business deals; they never finished a single model together. Jason recognizes the pattern, turns away from the window, and gives the boy his full attention.

As the hours pass, Jason stops treating the house as merely a place to wait. He admires Josh's baseball cards, plays a wildly unfair board game by the boy's homemade rules, and repairs a clogged drain and a faulty furnace for Amy. Josh decides that Jason would make a good father and even tries to solve the problem of one child without a dad and one man without a family, though Jason explains that marriage is not so simple.

Back at the center, Tony volunteers to speak about the week but turns his testimony into a boast about his strength, looks, intelligence, and leadership. Then Too Large steps forward with a poem. He describes the neighborhood, violence, expectations, and friendships that have made him feel trapped inside invisible walls. Now he sees another way to live and understands that standing tall begins by kneeling before God. He lays down the weapons and attitudes that have kept blood in the streets.

Connie is deeply moved. The polished evening she planned has collapsed, but honest words from one of the young men accomplish what the program was meant to do. The gang members return quietly to their cabins, and the feared confrontation never happens.

When Eugene finally arrives, Jason is reluctant to leave the unfinished time with Amy and Josh. He invites Josh to spend afternoons at Whit's End rather than returning to an empty house after school. Amy considers the offer, but makes no promise. Jason departs grateful for a night of small repairs, games, and attention that mattered more than the speech he had prepared.

Jason reaches the Timothy Center after everyone else has left. Connie tells him that the night somehow went right without his presentation, and Jason realizes his own night went right without reaching the retreat. Neither can easily explain what took place because the important moments were unplanned and personal. Their failed arrangements have made room for two kinds of ministry neither one expected.