BOOM TOWN OR BUST TOWN

 The visuals for this story are on the Visual Aid Set. They are on DVD so you can pause the scene as you tell the story, then move to the next slide.

The bone weary traveler could not believe his eyes as he scanned the empty street. Windows were boarded. Litter lined the streets, while the wind haphazardly rolled tumbleweed onto the sidewalks. "Anybody here," the frail traveler screeched. The loud banging of a loose sign over the town salon was the only reply. As the traveler approached the end of the board buildings erected in the heyday of gold mining, he repeated his inquiry. "Anybody here? Somebody please answer me." An old dusty man appeared from the doorway. He was bent and his face was wrinkled and cracked. His clothes were dusty and thread bare. 

"What do you want. I'm just a tired old man. Leave me alone." 

Running to the stranger, the anxious traveler began, "Tell me what's happen ed to this place. The letter told me this was a prosperous mining town. It said there was enough gold here to make a man rich. Where are all the people? Where's all the gold?

 Oh there was once gold here, but it's all gone now and so are the people. A few struck it rich, but when the gold was all gone, the people left. I'm too old to leave. I don't have anywhere to go so I'm just gonna stay here till I die. 

I don't understand. This was a boom town with lots of people, lots of money, lots of everything.

 Boom towns become bust towns when the gold is gone. All the heyday and hilarity that accompanied the gold rush is in the past. That day is gone. You can't live in the past, it's over. Fellow, don't you realize nothing in this life lasts forever.

 2 Corinthians 4:18 "While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal."