There is a large military training center near Columbus called Camp Atterbury. One of the chaplains on the base goes to our church and for the past 4 years he has organized a night of caroling on the base. This year, people in the church baked over 6000 cookies to hand out while caroling. (Karen baked several dozen.)

It was a moving experience. Most of the soldiers there are preparing to go to Iraq. In fact, some have shipped out since we were there on Wednesday night. I have never seen a more appreciative group than the 10 or so groups of soldiers we sang to. Many were crying and were sure to tell us thank you and that it meant a lot to them.

We carried several large boxes of cookies around to different barracks, the soldiers would come out, we would sing and the kids would hand out cookies to them. Elijah, our youngest (almost 3,) was a huge hit with the soldiers.

He would grab as many bags of cookies he could carry and go running up to the line of soldiers yelling, “here soldier!” They were eating it up. Several of them were sure to come find him to thank him after we were done singing. There was one place that had this small ditch with a little bit of ice an water. Elijah went up to it, stopped for a second like he was going to jump… then he did. Several of the soldiers, in unison, said, “Airborne!” “He’ll be in the 101st.”

It was a great experience, much more than I expected. And I was surprised at the sincere and heartfelt appreciation we got from the troops. Please pray for these soldiers as they make their way to Iraq.

Thankfully, we close on our Columbus, Indiana house today. Miraculously, we don’t take money, we are actually getting some back….woohoo! I can’t tell you what a relief it will be to sign those papers today. I am looking forward to it. When we established a closing date last week, I began pulling off wallpaper. This weekend I hope to remove the hedges so we can actually see the front of our home. We get to rip out two rooms of carpet that is covering hardwood floors. I can’t wait! There is lots to do, but I love it. I love turning a home into “mine.” I told our realtor friend I am ready to constructive deconstruct!

Late this week, things were set in motion that will hopefully allow us to remain in and purchase the house we are living in. Karen came to visit me at the office this week. I recently moved to a new building and she wanted to see where I work.
While she was there I introduced her to our HR manager, the lady that hired me.

Karen was talking to her and she asked how things were going with selling our house, etc. Karen explained our situation and that we might have to move again by the end of the month. She also mentioned that she and the kids may move back to Little Rock for the summer to save money and allow me time to find a rental.

The next day the HR manager called me into her office and asked what LHP could do, financially, to help. I told her what I needed per month to buy the house here and still make the mortgage payment in Little Rock. She didn’t seem shocked by the number. She told me she would talk it over with my manager and let me know. On Friday, my manager called me into his office and told me that they would be able to do it on a per diem basis until our house in Little Rock sold.

This is a small company with limited resources. I know this is a sacrifice for them. I’m in manager meetings and know that they have tight margins. Increasing my cost by the amount they did isn’t easy.
My manager told me they were willing to do it because they think I am a good fit for the company and they want me to help grow the company. They want to do what they can to help alleviate stress. I have never felt more valued in my professional life. They don’t realize the amount of loyalty they just invested in. I won’t be going anywhere soon. A company that is willing to go the extra mile for me… I won’t be going anywhere soon and I will be doing my part to help them grow. (On a side note, they all keep reasonable hours, even the owners. I won’t be working 60 or 70 hour weeks.)

I went to the mortgage company Friday afternoon and was approved for a loan on the house. We signed an addendum to our offer to close on the house no later than May 31st.
Things are going to be tight until our Little Rock house sells but things are definitely looking up!

As some of you know, one of my brother’s (the next oldest to me) has had some trouble with the law. He had some drug addiction problems and stole some prescription drugs from the hospital a few years ago. He continued to battle addiction through his legal battles, did some time in jail and did house arrest last year. He’s been doing well, staying off drugs (I’ve seen him on them enough to know when he’s on and when he’s off.)
He had some fines to pay as well but has not had the income to get them paid off in time.
Last week, a judge sentenced him to 6 more months in prison. He will have to serve 3. Seems strange to me since he has been paying on the fines and has stayed out of trouble but the law is the law.

He is in the local county jail for now. I went to visit him last night. That was the first time I’ve set foot in a jail. It was just like in the movies, he was behind glass and there was a telephone to talk to the “other side.”

There were 6 or 7 visitation stalls. Down at the end, a lady was visiting with a guy that looked somewhat familiar. While my brother was talking to my mom, he wrote on a piece of paper that the guy was Bobby Bassett. He murdered a woman and three kids a few years ago, buried them in a wooded area by a creek.
In the stall next to us, there was a lady talking to an older guy. That guy looked familiar to me as well. I thought I had seen his picture in the paper not long ago for child molestation. When I got to talk to my brother, he whispered in the phone that the guy next to him was in for child molestation. I was right, I did see the guy in the paper.

I stood there, as my mom was talking to my brother, thinking about the terrible crimes these guys standing a few feet from me had committed. Unspeakable crimes. How could these women still care enough about them to take the time to visit them in jail? They didn’t deserve any love at all. What kind of women were they that they could over look what these guys had done and still tell them that they loved them?

Then the obvious hit me. We are all criminals in God’s eyes. We have all broken his law and are all undeserving of love from anyone, let alone God’s love. But he gives it to us anyway. He extends grace and mercy.
Just like the ladies visiting the criminals at the local county jail. They were painting a picture of grace for me and they didn’t know it.
I don’t know the circumstances of their relationships but I know that they cared enough about these “undesirables” to visit them.

Those guys deserve to be where they are and I’m glad they are behind bars where they cannot do any more damage to society. But they have also had all hope removed from their lives. Maybe the grace and mercy extended by those that still love them will give them hope and desire to change…

The kids started at a new school here in Indiana on Tuesday. They seem to be adjusting well and are making new friends quickly.

They go to arguably the best public grade school in Columbus and left the best public grade school in Little Rock. Luke had been held back in Kindergarten in Little Rock because he was behind in a few areas. It is all-day there. Here Kindergarten is half-day and it is voluntary. It turns out that the Kindergarten work in Little Rock is equivalent to First Grade work here so we move Luke up into First.

Elizabeth is pretty much on track in Second grade and already knows a few of the kids in her class from before we moved to Little Rock.

We live a block from the school so the kids can ride their bikes or walk which is so much more convenient than taking the bus or driving them. Plus the school has one of the coolest playgrounds I’ve ever seen. It will be a great place to take the kids to play in the Summer. I’ll have to post a picture tomorrow.

The G Sides had an interesting post on decision making this morning. I started to write a comment on it, once I got to paragraph 3 I decided it should be a post on my own blog.

Grant was talking about a couple of people that have come to him this week for advice on making tough decisions. I did the same thing when we were deciding on whether to stay on staff with FamilyLife or not. He didn’t give me any answers but what he did do is ask me a few key questions to help me formulate my thoughts and help equip myself to make a good decision

I also started reading a book by Gary Friesen called Decision Making and the Will of God: A Biblical Alternative to the Traditional View. I cannot recommend this book enough. Go get it.

Back to our hard decision…
We are not yet on the “other side” of it. I am living with my parents, Karen and the kids are 600 miles away. Karen is about ready to pull her hair out, its already going gray,  waiting for our house to sell. (anyone looking for a 5 bedroom 2300 square foot house in Pleasant Forest?)
But, we can see the light at the end of the tunnel, something I couldn’t see on the other side of the decision. All I saw was a very large, very thick brick wall. After we commited to our decision, its like that wall just crumbled in front of us. I got a good paying, fun job in less than a week with no interview. That was like the weight of the world being lifted off my shoulders.

Another thing we wanted to do in this decision is continue to seek places where we can be used by God to further his kingdom. The place where I work is about 70% Chinese, 15% Indian and 15% white American. I am working in a mission field. There is a chinese woman who leads a Bible study with a handfull of other Chinese Christians here. I want to work with those guys to help reach out to our co-workers. And I am in the process of laying a foundation with one of the younger guys here, his name is Hao. I invite him to play basketball with me at lunch and had him over for dinner last night, then we played Starcraft for a couple of hours with my younger brother. I don’t know where he stands spiritually, but I am in the middle of earning the right to talk to him about it.
We have also visted another church here. We decided when we move back that we are going to visit several churches and plug in where we can best be used. That may be the church we left when we moved to Little Rock but it may not be. Anyway, this church we visited is big on the members serving the body of Christ. The first sermon I heard there was about just that, about serving in the church using your talents and abilities. It struck a chord with me.

So, like I said, we are still in the middle of this decision but we see God at work in the midst of it and we take comfort in that.

Times like now I question my sanity.  The kids and I left Little Rock at 4:30 p.m. on Wednesday afternoon.  After a 45 minute traffic delay in West Memphis and an hour stop for supper in Jackson, TN we arrived in Columbus at 3:30 a.m. I had been up for 22 hours, handed the kids over to Mike and went straight to bed. I woke up around 9:30 or so. I have been fortunate enough to have naps everyday. 

We looked at houses all morning, yesterday. I found one I really like. Mike found 2 he really likes.  Think they are the same? NO!! I have to admit, one of the 2 Mike likes is really cool.  The problem……It sits on N. Wood Lake, yes, a lake. 4 kids, under 10 and not allowed to have fences up…….MOMS, need I say more?  The back side of the house has 2 decks, up and down, kids leaning over, falling off and going splat.  Anyway, cool house, wrong timing. 

The one I like is in town but on a quiet street. Has a huge front yard and a long driveway.  No associations or anything so we could put a fence up if we wanted.  It has a pool and hot tub in the backyard.  We would have to put up another fence that locks directly around the pool. It is a very traditional 2 story house, functional and we can be there, long term.  It has 4 bedrooms, 2 1/2 baths, laundry room, hardwood floors in the living, dining, and a bedroom. (Pretty sure it is throughout and just covered by carpet.) Family room has a fireplace, there is a full unfinished basement.  It is a great house to host a small group and entertain. Ideal for some kind of ministry outreach.  It is one block south of Parkside Elementary and the community soccer fields, park, and People Trails. It is also within reasonable bike riding distance of Grandpa and Grandma’s new house.

Someone please buy our Little Rock house!!! Pray for our home to sell!  

Since we have moved to Arkansas we are continually asked how many children we have. (That is a common question, especially if people know we are on staff at FamilyLife. Four children around there is average) In the back of my mind I am always thinking five even though we only have four with us. On March 1, 2002 I went into preterm labor and delivered our third baby 16 weeks prematurely.  Emma Mae was born at 24 weeks gestation weighing 1 pound and 10 1/2 ounces. She was 12 1/2 inches long. Emma was with us for 35 1/2 hours. She died from a pulmonary hemmorage (a major vessel in her lung “popped”). 

From time to time the kids will ask about her and we explain (again) what happened.  Elizabeth was the most impacted and still longs for a baby sister.  I sometimes feel cheated when I look in the mirror and see all the stretch marks. I have been pregnant and given birth 5 times and have 4 to show for it. It is those times I recall the way God worked through our lives during that time and that His plan is perfect. There are times I still wonder what she would look like or how girlie would she be. She would have been 4 this year.  Then I look at my family and thank God for each and everyone of them.

Here is a link to the page Mike made in 2002.

http://mikeriley.freeservers.com/emma/emma.html

In one of the pictures you can see a normal sized syringe.  Also, my hand is next to her in one of them. It is really hard to grasp how tiny she was.  The diaper is about the size of a panty liner.  Her head was about the size of a large lemon. Her hands were so tiny that she could only grasp my pinky half way.

On her grave marker is the scripture: Psalm 18:32 It is God who arms me with strength and makes my way perfect.

One other thing about our home town. The Commons Mall is a pretty cool place in downtown Columbus. Its one of the many “architectural wonders” there, the building itself and the sculpture inside called Chaos I

The Commons is a strange place. It is a mall (although the shopping portion seems to be dying),  a playground, food court, live theater and movie theater all in one. As a kid I saw all kinds of cool stuff there. Chinese Circus, talent shows, a puppet version of The Griffin and the Minor Canon (the coolest puppet show I’ve ever seen. People dressed all in black manning these life-sized, totally wicked looking puppets). Junior and Senior proms were there. Oh, and the first date I had with Karen was to see Heywood Banks there.

The playground there is an indoor city playground.

 It used to be an awesome playground, back in the day. That 4 foot mound used to have this giant circular monkey bar thing that was about 8 feet high. We could climb and sit on top of it… 12 feet off the ground.
You can’t see it all in the picture but the thing the slide on the right is in is one of two, 2 story cylinders made of bars. They both have platforms (enclosed by bars) on top and they exit out into the upstairs of the mall (right by the movie theater entrance.) The second cylinder had stairs that now just go to the top of the slide but they used to go all the way up to the platform on top. And the cylinder with the slide used to have two fire poles, one that went from the top platform to a second platform that was where the top of the slide is now, and a second pole that went from there to the ground.
It was all very dangerous but to an 8 year old kid it was like heaven.

They are supposed to be tearing it all down and building some new playground. I’m sure they will make it all “safe” and remove all possibility of “broken limbs” and “severe head trauma” but there is no way it will be as fun as it was when I was a kid.

The other day at work, we had a discussion about the generic term for soft drinks. Do you call it soda, pop, the generic “coke” or something else. One co-worker pointed us to this map that gives a county-by-county breakdown:

Man, I’m glad people have that kind of time on their hands to waste because this stuff is fascinating to me.

The Arkansans seem to favor “coke.”
One guy is from Michigan and was a strong “pop” proponent.
I’m from central Indiana (Bartholomew Co) where it seems to be an even split between “coke” and “pop.” I’ve said both but I don’t think I’ve ever used the term “soda.”

On a related note, I am a connoisseur of fine root beers. Something I’ve encountered more than once in restaurant when asking if they have root beer. “No, but we have Dr. Pepper.” What?!?! Since when is Dr. Pepper anything like root beer? I guess they are both brown but beyond that, I got nothin’.

Oh, and by the way, Barq’s is not root beer.