Vicki and I were married fifteen years ago today! I could not have found a better woman to share life with. Even so, I cannot imagine where all the time has gone.
MISSION TRIP. Last year Jenna and I, along with over 40 people from church, went to Cumberland, Kentucky, to help with some projects at the Club 180 Ministry. This year I took Ben along with me. We rode with Rick Robinson. We left Monday and came back yesterday. There were eight from our church who went this year.
Terry and Angie Burkeen do and incredible work up there. Cumberland is a coal mining town with a closed coal mine. It is remote and there is little else for people to do. Club 180 is one of several ministries operating in the area. I’m not going to list all the Burkeens do at Club 180 (see their web site in the link above to learn more), but suffice it to say they work as the hands and feet of God, living completely on faith, to reach people for Christ in an economically depressed area.
This year our project was to install a drop tile ceiling in the upstairs room at the club. It is a large room. A lot of it is used for storage right now, but they do have their computer lab set up in one end for their after school tutoring program. We wound up putting in the grid but not the ceiling tiles because the wiring for the lights had not been put in yet.
We also brought up six old computers with us to add to their existing lab. I spent the whole time getting the operating system reloaded and software installed for them to use. I also repaired a couple of computers that had failed since last summer and did some maintenance to their computer network. When we left they had fifteen units running and able to get on the internet.
I think Ben enjoyed his first mission trip. He was a lot of help to me when I needed someone to pull wire but more so when he handed things to the guys up on ladders as they were putting up the ceiling grid. He also killed me in air hockey, but, I dominated in foosball.
OFF TO THE MOVIES. We went to see the new Disney/Pixar movie UP last night. It was really good. What made this extra fun was that Vicki had scheduled this to be an outing for any families from church that wanted to go, and to make the deal even more fun we went to the Franklin Drive-in. We wound up having six vanloads of folks there, and we all sat out in front of our vehicles and enjoyed the movie together. (Our kids sat in style because I pulled the rear seats out of the van!)
There was some debate about whether to go to the drive-in. We’d had a lot of storms move through in the last couple of days (one on Tuesday afternoon brought 50 mph winds and blew down several trees) and there was a big thunderhead looming on the western horizon when we met up at church. In the end we all decided it wouldn’t come our way and headed to Franklin, however, we watched some impressive lightning in the distance behind the movie screen throughout the entire film.
This was the first time Vicki and I had ever been to the drive-in. She has mentioned going several times over the years and I will admit dropping the ball on that one. It was a lot of fun, and we will go back.
COFFEE GIRL. Vicki and I are not coffee drinkers. When Jim and Dianna come to visit Jim packs his own coffee maker along as a matter of survival. I’ve often wondered if he thinks we are uncivilized. That’s why I had to laugh the other day when Jenna came in from Pauline’s and announced that she now likes coffee. I don’t think Pauline gives her much, but she’s had enough to develop a taste for it. As far as I’m concerned she can have it.
SWANN AND SON LAWN CARE. I now have a mowing partner! Ben had been begging me to let him mow for a long time. I knew his was capable because I’d let him mow sitting in my lap. Of course, he was wanting to solo. The other week I was letting him mow while I was there with him and something just said to me, “He knows what he’s doing. Get off the mower,” so I did. When I hopped off he stopped and looked back at me and I motioned for him to go on. Ben is not one to betray his emotions, but I could tell he felt really big.
I’ve let Ben mow several times since then. So far he is obeying all my safety rules and being very particular about doing a good job, and I can get the trimming done at the same time. I got a smile listening to him sing as he mows. I don’t know what he was singing, I suspect he was making the song up as he went along, but he was belting it out at the top of his lungs. When I asked him about it later he didn’t want to admit to singing, but he finally said he was singing because there was nothing else to do.
Joe
