The dreaded 3 a.m. phone call

A parent’s worse nightmare….the 3 a.m. phone call letting you know that one of your children is in trouble.  Dan and I got that call last week. 

It was Walmart asking us to come get our DOG.  He was found shopping at Walmart again (see our Feb. 9, 2008 blog entry)!  It was hard to comprehend how it could be possible…he sleeps inside the house with us.  But it seems that when he was let outside for his nightly constitutional, he was left there.  We both thought the other one had let him in.  I guess he got bored and decided to go walkabout, again crossing the busiest east/west road in the county at night (he’s a black dog), through the parking lot and right to Walmart. 

Dan got dressed and retrieved Duke (leaving a $20 reward to the employee that found him).  The next morning we found where he’d pawed aside the heavy 12” X 12” pavers, tore through the chicken wire the dug under the fence to find freedom.

One would think that we could write a blog about Dawn’s team and how they came in 2nd in their region and are now able to go the the national finals (in Kissimmee this year – hope we can attend some of the games!).  It’s so cool!

Or how Devon is looking for his first apartment in Naples.  His childhood friend (fellow missionary kid and his best friend), Kyle Vrooman, has moved down and is working with Devon in the shipping warehouse.  They are staying with Devon’s grandparents in Naples and hope to find an apartment in the next couple of weeks.  He is so excited!  Maybe he’ll take Duke off our hands!  HA HA 

But no, the dog gets the headlines this time around.

Ranked #10 in the nation!

This news is just so cool!  Dawn's team, Trinity College of Florida, is now ranked #10 in the Nation in the NCCAA Division II Coaches’ Poll.   http://www.thenccaa.org/top10rankings.html

www.thenccaa.org

You can’t go around hugging missionaries!

 

Dan and I were at our daughter’s college  (Trinity College of Florida) missionary conference last week for 3 days.  We set up our booth the first day and were prepared when classes were dismissed.  Dawn walked by our booth with a group of her friends.  When she got to the end of the table, I was standing there and she gave me a big hug.  One of her classmates gave a gasp, her hand flew to her mouth and she said, “Dawn you can’t go around hugging the missionaries!”  Dawn turned around and said “She’s my mom!”.  Her friend’s eyes flew open wide and the look of chagrin on her face was priceless.  Everyone around had a great laugh about it.  She knew Dawn was an MK, missionary kid, so she figured that due to that Dawn felt a real affinity toward missionaries and was going around hugging the missionaries.  She didn’t know we were her parents.  It really was hilarious!  (The rest of the week, whenever I saw her, I reached out and gave her a big hug.)

On the first day of the conference, I had an interesting conversation with the Child Evangelism Fellowship missionary at his booth.  He is what I call a ripple effect.  He quit the military to become a missionary because of the ministry and influence of my dad who was a CEF missionary to the US military in Germany.  When he got to the US for CEF’s training institute, my dad was one of his teachers.  One can never tell how far out your ministry will ripple!  It brought tears to my eyes.  I wish my dad knew how far his ripples have reached!  (My dad died of ALS in 2002.)

As the students were milling around, perusing the booths, the school’s 4 Haitians found our booth.  One of them picked up the Creole hymnal that we had out and found her favorite hymn.  She started singing and the others joined in.  They stood there and sang all the verses.  A crowd formed and listened to the impromptu concert in a foreign language.  It was cool.  Each one of them made an effort to find us from time to time during the 3 days to say hi and talk about Haiti.

We were able to have great personal interaction with the students at our booth, at meals and in chapel.  It’s been fun to meet Dawn’s friends, too, and to see her going through “the college experience”.  Dan was one of 5 missionaries chosen to share in an evening chapel, which gave him a unique setting to touch every student.  He shared Amanda’s testimony (see our previous blog entry!) and gave a great challenge to the kids for personal missions involvement.

The last day we had a 45 minute workshop where 18 students learned that being a missionary is a rewarding, fullfilling life. They received a challenge to consider becoming green: taking their home culture (blue), mixing in a new foreign culture (yellow) resulting in a new unique culture all their own (green)! God needs more who are willing to become GREEN.

Since the school is small, we were able to get to know students by name and have several opportunities to interact.  It made for a much better missions conference experience for us; it made it very enjoyable.

We got home Saturday, but not to the empty nest that we had when we left, but I’ll save that for another blog entry!

RMI Impacts Lives Forever!

It's been 2 weeks

It's been 2 weeks since Dawn left for college and she's already come home for a weekend visit.  She was sweet to want to come keep me company while Dan is out of the country for 2 weeks (Haiti).  He went to Haiti to be with a new Sister Church team as they met and began to make forever relationships with brothers and sisters they never knew they had.  [That part of the trip went very well!  He said the Haitian church received them exceptionally well - the town's mayor presented the team with the key to city.  That's a first for our teams!] 

The 2nd part of Dan's trip is administrative meetings with RMI's missionaries and the RMI national staff.  Rob and Becky Thompson, RMI's VP, will be flying to Haiti tomorrow, Tuesday, to join him.  They will see the house they are to live in, take measurements and make plans on what they will need when they move there in March.  Rob and Dan will also be meeting with all the Sister Church pastors and School Directors.  

We are relieved to see that Tropical Depression Ana seems to be heading north of Port-au-Prince and the Cayes area.  Hopefully it shouldn't interfere with their trip there.  A great site to follow tropical weather is http://www.stormpulse.com/. 

Back to Dawn's visit.  I have been "home alone" while Dan is gone, and this weekend was her last chance to get home before classes start, so she came home to keep me company.  We had a great mother/daughter day (garage saleing, a movie, shopping and supper at PF Chang's) on Saturday, then she was off to the beach with friends and a girls sleepover here at the house.  Of course, there's laundry that needs to be done before she goes back!

She's settling in at Trinity:  Getting to know the area (all the essentials....the mall, Target, Walmart, the beach and the grocery store), getting to know the school staff, getting to know the team, oh! and her roommate situation was changed (Julianna will now be her suite-mate and Yolanda will be her roommate).  She's enjoying it and looking forward to the start of classes.

It was really nice to have her home again!!!  I sure have missed her.

The start of college life

Being the first one to arrive, Dawn was able to choose her room.  Yes, that's a full size frig and microwave in the room.  Since Trinity doesn't serve breakfast and some weekend meals, they provide the frig and microwave in each 2 person room for the students to fix their own meals.  The rooms are spacious and the furniture is nice.

She chose to be by the nice big window.  We were able to find a place for everything and get everything in place.

What did we do before the invention of those stacking plastic drawers?  The desk area will have to serve as part dresser, part kitchen counter and part study desk.  Dan was able to get her computer and printer set up and running.  Now to get some studying done!

The first practice - meeting teammates, getting new equipment and warming up.  Dawn's roommate, Julianne, is standing next to her in the white shirt.

 

The first of many pep talks from Coach Mark.  Classes start Aug. 26.  Their first tournament is Labor Day weekend in Clearwater, which we hope to attend!

How do you say goodbye?

How do you say goodbye to someone who is leaving for college?

You invite her friends to join her at her favorite sushi restaurant, Mr. Mee's.

You make sure her brother, Devon, is there.

Then you go midnight bowling.

You rejoice that the siblings are finally getting along!

You make sure to include school friends.

And include church friends.

And volleyball friends.

Yes, include lots of volleyball friends!  Left to right, Courtney (Mississippi College), Dawn (Trinity College), Brad (Warner College - the only men's volleyball college team in Florida) and Anysia (St. Leo University).  They were the 4 musketeers this summer.  If they weren't playing volleyball, they were at the beach, or just hanging out.

The family!

[By the way, the going away party was a great success!]