Playing Catch Up

Here we are in late August. Some days are really hot, others have been more pleasant, and there has been more rain in the mix. The farmers are cutting tobacco and many barns are starting to belch out smoke now as tobacco is cured. It smells like home.

Being August, Ben celebrated his 17th birthday on the 3rd and is now driving with an unrestricted license. I hit my 51st birthday a week ago today.

RIDING THE ROLLER COASTER
When I wrote last, which was five weeks ago, I mentioned that getting past the Fourth of July always feels cresting the big hill in a roller coaster and beginning the downhill run to the start of school. Well, that’s exactly how it feels right now. I’m glad to have the first full week of school behind us. Maybe the dust will start to settle a bit now as we find the routine. I’m sure that when Labor Day gets here I will wonder what happened to August.

The boys have hit the ground sprinting with their classes. Ben has a very challenging schedule this year with dual enrollment US History, AP English, AP Physics I, and Pre Calculus Honors—all advanced/college level courses. This is rounded out with Art and New Testament (which will be replaced with Economics in the spring). Nate’s high school career is rolling with Old Testament (to be replaced with Theater in the spring), AP Human Geography, Honors Geometry, Honors Biology, Spanish I, and Honors English. These boys have a lot of homework.

I am not driving the bus this year. I was asked to take on the responsibilities of Director of Technology Integration at school which will require that I be able to be at school outside of the school day, so that put an end to my regular bus driving gig.

CROSS COUNTRY
While I’m on the subject of school, the boys have been training for cross country all summer. They’ve steadily increased their practice distance to six miles. Yesterday they ran their first meet of the season at Macon County High School in Lafayette, Tennessee. Ben finished with a time of 21:54 and Nate followed with 24:13. Ben was voted by his teammates to be the male team captain.

HAITI
I have mentioned several times over the summer that Jenna was preparing to return to Haiti on another mission trip. Her team left a month ago today (Thursday, July 20) and returned on Friday of the following week (July 28). The main goals of this trip were to spend time with the kids at the orphanage, offer a dental clinic, and do a few other small projects such a paint a house for a widow in the area. They had a very successful trip in terms of what all they got to do. They had a great visit with the orphans, did some meaningful work in the community, and helped a lot of people suffering with dental problems.

Haitian law stipulates that kids must leave an orphanage once they reach 16 years of age. We have several boys who are due to age out in a couple of months and the statistics of what happens when they appear on the streets are not good so this has been a concern. A dream has been to build a transition home to keep them off the streets while providing them a way to continue their education and begin some sort of career. We needed $14,000 to make this happen. Well, a group of teens who were part of this last mission trip with Jenna bonded with those boys and were so moved that when they came home were instrumental in raising the needed funds in about a week’s time. There is much more to this amazing story than I am including here. Suffice it to say, God moved in amazing ways among his people.

TRAVELING
As hectic as the last five weeks have been around here, there has also been a lot of travel. I reported last time that the Cotters came to see us the first weekend of July. They left here and did a big, two week tour of theme parks in Ohio, Chicago, and St. Louis. They stopped back by on their way home while Jenna was in Haiti. Life may be a roller coaster right now, but they did a roller coaster tour to may anyone envious.

A few weeks later Vicki and Jenna took advantage of a Southwest Airlines deal and made a quick trip to Florida. They flew out early on August 9 and returned home on the 12th. Their tickets took them to Orlando where they rented a car and drove to Madeira Beach near Tampa. Since they didn’t want to fool with sunscreen they got up early each morning to spend time at the beach. Then they went back to nap, eat, go shopping, etc. returning to the beach later to enjoy the sunset. They caught up with all the Cotters in Orlando for a meal before heading home.

While the girls were at the beach the boys went on the back to school retreat at Camp Widjiwagan on Percy Priest Lake. They had a great time spending time with old friends and meeting kids who are new to school. This left me home alone for a few days, which was okay. I had plenty to do at work. Mom and I went out to eat one night. And that Saturday (August 12) I worked the Fairest of the Fair. Participation in this event has really declined over the last few years.

ODDS AND ENDS
I feel like I’m jumping all over the map since I am not presenting everything in chronological order. Forgive me if this has been confusing, but in writing it seemed to make more sense to organize my thoughts by topic. Now I find myself with a few leftovers.

Back on Saturday, July 22, while Jenna was in Haiti and right after the Cotters got on the road for home, the boys and I headed to Adams for the Threshermen’s Show. Now we expect this event to be hot and humid because it’s July in Tennessee, but this year was among the hottest that I remember. We had a good time in spite of this, but the boys had so much homework from their summer reading that we didn’t stay as long as we normally do. While we were there Vicki met up with some old high school friends in Bowling Green.

The next weekend Mom and I went to the Denning reunion after church. I don’t know too many people on this end of my family so I just enjoy a good pot luck meal. Among the cousins we saw there was Josephine who is a four years older than mom. Josephine, better known as Jo Walker-Meador, was the executive director of the Country Music Association from 1962 until 1991. She passed away Friday.

Last Sunday Vicki, Jenna, and I played hooky from Mt. Carmel and visited Grace Church of the Nazarene, the church Jenna attends when she is in college. We had heard her speak a lot about it so we decided to check it out. Vicki and I both said that if we were new to town and looking for a church they would get a return visit from us. This is also where Jenna has her church nursery job.

WRAPPING UP
So, that’s the Reader’s Digest version of the last five weeks of our lives. Today Will, Zachary, and Emily drove in from Virginia to see the eclipse tomorrow. Zachary brought is virtual reality rig and we are enjoying watching Ben fight imaginary enemies on the headset. We can see what he sees on the TV, but it’s still fun to watch him “shadow box” in the middle of the floor with nothing around him.

Joe