Ministry Update
Cleaning wooden decks, spraying poison ivy, shooting varmints, spring cleaning a travel trailer, cutting grass – what do these sound like to you? To us, these activities mean vacation. We spent the last week at the farm enjoying a week of physical labor that turned out to be very relaxing for me. We are also in the process of preparing our trailer to sell. We don’t yet have a buyer, but we are praying and trusting and anticipating that God will soon supply the buyer that we need.
Our next meeting is Friday of this week in lower AL. I will be preaching a Friday graduation ceremony and then be preaching a Sunday through Friday revival meeting in the church. After that, we will be home in NC for a little less than a week before we hit the road again.
Family Update
Life has been rather “normal” lately – that is to say, nothing unusual has happened. We had a week off and spent it at the family farm in Indiana. The kids had a blast playing outside, riding the tractor, playing in the house and in the barns. It was enjoyable for all of us. Josiah and Paul were both able to fly a kite for the first time. (I almost fell over when Paul told me he had never flown a kite before!) Josiah was content to sit outside and hold the kite string “until lunch,” he told me. After warning him of the dangers of power lines, trees, buildings, and letting go of the string, I went in the house to do some work. Some time later, Paul and I heard an awful screech, and very loud crying. “He lost his kite,” I said. Sure enough, when I went outside, Josiah was running across the lawn, tears pouring down his face, still wailing. Off in the distance, I could see the kite, making its way across the fields. I tried in vain to calm Josiah, who was nearly in hysterics (ever see those scenes in a movie where the hysterical person gets their face slapped by the person trying to talk to them?). I did not have to resort to such drastic tactics, I am glad to say, but I was thinking about it, at least! Paul ran after the kite, and barely rescued it from certain destruction as it landed just behind the farmer plowing in the next field. It turns out that one of his sisters, when allowed to fly the kite, had let it go intentionally rather than give it back to him. I know you cannot imagine either of our two daughters doing such a thing, so to protect the guilty one, we will not mention any names.
While in town one day, we had to go to Lowe’s (or Slowe’s, as I always call it) and pick out some paint samples. You know, the little cards with all the different colors of paint. Josiah and Abigail both wanted one, so I, out of a need to keep my sanity, gave them each a card. All the way home, Josiah quizzed me about the paint sample. I thought his interest was unusually strong, but tried to explain what the sample was. After we got back to the farm, the kids ran off to play, and I was busy downstairs. Josiah came back down with a rather disappointed look on his face and told me that his paint card didn’t work. “What do you mean, it doesn’t work?” I asked. “Well,” he said, “I put it on the wall, but it didn’t change the color. It didn’t even stick!” I was quite amused and realized why he had been so interested in the paint samples. He thought that just by placing it on the wall, you could change the color of the wall. Now that would be an invention, to be sure! Thankfully, it didn’t work that way, or the whole upstairs would be a bright cobalt blue!
I am also glad to announce that the first year of Cross Country Baptist Academy is finished. Both student and teacher are enjoying summer vacation. Josiah has learned a whole lot this year. He can add up to ten (most of the time), subtract one, count to one hundred, tell time to the hour, half hour, and quarter after, read a calendar, read books, and he has also learned the pledges (American & Christian flags and the Bible). He has learned a Bible verse for every letter of the alphabet, as well as several longer passages, and has learned the first verse to about twenty familiar hymns. I really hope he won’t forget everything over the vacation. If you hear that I have been committed to an insane asylum next fall, you can assume that Josiah’s lack of memory was the cause.
Today I lost my keys. I did not realize they were missing until we stopped for fuel and took the kids to the bathroom about two hours down the road. I remembered locking the trailer before we left, so I knew that they weren’t inside it, but I could not imagine where I had put them. I usually put them directly into my purse, but they weren’t there, either. I thought I remembered putting them on the arm rest of the truck as I strapped Abigail into her car seat, but they were not there, nor were they on the floor of the truck. I was baffled as well as frustrated. Although he did not say so, I wondered if Paul was secretly laughing at my misfortune, seeing as how he is usually the one to misplace his keys. I take great pride in always knowing where my belongings are at all times (well, at least the important ones) and rib him to no end when he loses something. As it turned out, he was once again the perfect husband and was only helpful in my time of need. Of course, it would happen that I would lose my keys when we have to be on the other end of the nation in two days. We called a friend to check the driveway of the farm, and we proceeded to tear the truck apart. I found Sunday school papers, sunglasses, books, toys, some dirt, shredded Kleenex, and even a check from last year, but no keys. The keys, our friends reported, were not at the farm. Rats. We stopped at a church and set up for the night. Paul began thoroughly cleaning out the truck, while I went into the house. It was then that I remembered where I put the keys. When we stopped at the gas station, I was awakened from a shallow sleep and took Abigail into the house to use the bathroom (and, yes, the potty training is still a dismal failure). In my after-nap stupor, I took my keys into the trailer, although Paul had already unlocked the door. When we went into the bathroom, I placed them on the window sill, hence the vague memory of setting them on a ledge. It wasn’t until I got back into the truck that I realized they were gone. So, praise the Lord, I found them and they weren’t hours behind us or in the hands of some irresponsible vagrant. No comments, please. Ha!
