Freddy smiles at the camera during pizza time today!

For some reason, Ocean Springs schools arranged their calendar this year where the kids (and more so, teachers!) enjoy a full week’s vacation for Thanksgiving. The major problem with this great idea, of course, is with the mommas and daddies who don’t get a full week’s vacation for Thanksgiving. What to do with those kiddos?

Three of our great young moms here – Samantha, Hollie, and Lindsey – came up with a great idea for today, and as I type, a load full of kids are enjoying pizza, popcorn, and a movie here at our church’s building.

Of course, now that I think of it, Samantha substitute teaches, Hollie teaches elementary school, and Lindsey is studying to teach elementary school – so this isn’t much of a break for them. But they have a heart for kids it seems, and it is inspiring to see them spend quality time with all these important kids during their vacation.

If you want to click the link to my Webshots page on the left hand side of this web page, you can check out my new photo album from the game in Starkville yesterday. I ended up with a lot of great pictures (I placed 44 in the album). As you can see from the picture above, I ended up in some unique places with great photo opportunities. College football is such a great place to take a camera. It is quite a spectacle with such a kaleidoscope of colorful things to see, from the football team to the coaches, from the cheerleaders to the band, and of course the crazy fans. There’s really nothing else quite like it.

We had a really nice morning of worship and class today. Several out-of-town faces were sprinkled in the audience, and it was so nice to see them. Everyone seemed in an upbeat mood, and both worship and class seemed to go well. I preached from the end of Matthew 6 on Jesus’s teachings on the subject of worry.

Jody’s currently sorting through Christmas decorations, and I think I’m about to turn out the NFL to see my Cowboys battle the undefeated Colts.

I hope you all have a good day, too…

I took well over 200 pictures today in Starkville as my alma mater, the University of Arkansas, defeated the Mississippi State University Bulldogs 28-14 to clinch the SEC West title. I’ll have to put together an updated Webshots folder tomorrow afternoon maybe, but tonight I’m just too tired. And I still have to study for my sermon and class tomorrow.

I had a great time sitting with my friends, David and Darah, in the perfect football weather today. The Razorbacks could have played better, but outside of that, it was a perfect day.

Overall, it’s been a great day.

I’m on the road right now, staying in a cheap hotel in Jackson, Mississippi (this is not the great part).

I left Ocean Springs mid-morning and drove to Hattiesburg, where I had lunch at O’Charley’s with my daughter. I had some sort of Tex-Mex sirloin steak sandwich, and she had some sort of chicken alfredo thing, but the best part was spending an hour or so with just me and my daughter. I got an update on school and life, and I got to hear her dreams a bit. That made for a great day all by itself.

After lunch, I drove up to Jackson to watch a women’s college basketball game.

I met Marianne when she was a 7th grader playing Junior Varsity volleyball with my daughter. She was a great athletic talent even then, but more than that, she was full of life and energy! Erica and Marianne got to be good buddies, and in so doing, she and I did, too. We took Marianne with us to Dallas when I helped Erica stalk international soccer star, Landon Donovan, for a birthday present. It was there, from my nephew Joseph, that she began calling me Uncle Owl. We also took Marianne for Erica’s surprise 16th birthday trip from me to Orlando, where we watched some Spring Training baseball and went to a mystery dinner theater.

My wife and I fell in love with the entire family. We evacuated to our church’s building together for a tropical storm. We went to their house that horrible morning Marianne’s brother, Matthew, was killed in a tragic automobile accident. We went to big sister, Bethany’s, wedding. We simply love them all.

I also became a Marianne basketball fan along the way. We played several games of H-O-R-S-E along the way, and I take every opportunity to point out that I always win. But she has a special basketball talent, and I always did my best to go watch her play for the Lady Greyhounds throughout her high school career.

Marianne is a freshman in college now, and tonight was her first game for the Millsaps Lady Majors. Marianne started at point guard, and helped her team get out to a 9-o lead, scoring her first two points in the first few minutes of the game. Then, her coach took her out of the game (why do coaches do that when things are going well?), and the game never got under control again. Marianne ended up playing a lot of minutes, and playing well, but they ended up losing 42-40 when all was said and done.

But I was glad to get to see her play her first college game and score her first college points tonight! The picture above is of Marianne with all of her family that showed up to watch.

It has been a good day. And I plan on tomorrow being a good one as well, when I make the rest of my trip over to Starkville to watch the #5 Arkansas Razorbacks take on the Mississippi State University Bulldogs. The Hawgs and the Dawgs. I can’t wait…

I guess today was medical day for me…

I spent several hours in Mobile this morning visiting with Danielle and her mom, Angie. They are both so easy to talk to, and I really enjoyed being there with them. If all hospital visits were like that, I doubt any preacher would ever leave the hospital!

Danielle is up to 25 weeks along now (as of yesterday), and they’ve told her now that they would wait until 34 weeks if they could. Everything is going along fine so far, so we continue to pray that the little fella inside will be content to stay there for several more weeks to come. Shawn & Danielle (and the whole family) appreciates all of you who are praying for them.

The picture above is from the Children’s & Women’s Hospital there in Mobile. As you drive on to the campus, you see lots of these impressive bronze statues scattered around a well-manicured lawn and walkway, all depicting children in one way or another. The statues are captivating, and they made me wonder how many families have driven by and had reactions to them. I’m sure many have seen these depictions of kids enjoying life and have smiled, while others have broken down in tears. I don’t know if the statue garden is a good idea or not, but it surely can’t help being noticed.

This afternoon, my medical day continued with a visit to a surgeon to talk about scheduling a date for my (get your quotation mark fingers ready) “procedure.” The office was quiet, and the visit was smooth. Good folks all around.

When I asked the doctor about all the nightmare stories, he decided to tell me one. One of his colleagues performed a vasectomy for a man, and then eight or ten years later he received a call from the man with the news that his wife was pregnant. Quite a nightmare, eh? It gets worse. The vasectomy wasn’t the problem.

That’s not funny, of course. But I laughed anyway.

Fierce thunderstorms ripped through our area today, bringing over seven inches of rain to the Coast, along with significant tornado damage in counties just north of us. It was all more than a bit reminiscent of Hurricane Katrina for many folks. Those feelings will remain close to the surface for a long time to come it seems.

My daughter’s fourth grade class began the day with 20 kids in attendance. There was some confusion on the television station this morning about schools closing (actually the 5th grade school did close today from roof damage), and by day’s end, there were 8 kids left in her class. I’m sure most of the parents that came to check out their kids did so because of the confusion, though I suspect the memories of Katrina and the accompanying desires to have your children close by factored in to many of those decisions.

Hurricane Katrina thoughts came back even stronger tonight at our Peak of the Week Class. There weren’t very many of “us” there tonight, I guess because of the storms. But there were two relief groups in town today that have been here before: the New London Christian Church (Iowa) is back at our place, and our friends from the Lone Oak Church of Christ (Paducah, KY) are working at Central CofC in Pascagoula, but they came over tonight to see old friends.

At the end of class, Mitchell Covington (preacher at Lone Oak) remembered that he had a DVD that he had made after their first two trips to Ocean Springs. He gave it to Mr. Jim, and we all sat down to watch it. It was a wonderful DVD for anyone to watch (Mitchell did a GREAT job on it), but it was especially poignant for us to watch. I don’t cry, and I didn’t, but I thought about it. Memories.

It was neat after all was said and done, too, to watch the folks from the New London Christian Church and the Lone Oak Church of Christ getting to know one another. Just another good thing coming from this storm…

So starting early today, Hurricane Katrina reared her head more visibly than she has in a while. But just like I should expect by now, it all turned out good in the end.

Does your spouse ever say to your friends, “Hey, drop the kids off at our house if you need to run some errands?” No? (Note to self: Have long talk with wife.)

Just kidding, of course! Todd & Robin are some of our bestest friends in the world. They have four kids. The oldest is a teenager, so there are only rare sightings of him anymore. Next comes Connor, our Hillary’s bestest friend in the world. Pictured above are numbers 3 and 4, and they are full of life!

This family has been displaced from their home ever since Hurricane Katrina. They are finally getting close to moving back in their rebuilt house – in fact, they had a bunch of errands to get done tonight in their frantic attempt to get moved in before Todd’s family arrives for Thanksgiving next week. So Jody offered to watch the kids, and we had a blast.

Jaxon shot me with his toy gun so many times tonight I’m leaking like a sieve. And Brynlee served me with so much play pizza I’m pretty sure what I’m leaking is pizza. We had a great time together, and it was a little nostalgic having little ones around the house tonight.

Which, with my rapidly depleting energy level, reminds me to make sure I don’t miss that pending doctor’s appointment.

It’s on nights like tonight that I’m reminded of how good my job really is. All the folks pictured above (not forgetting Steve, who was chasing his kids around and not in the picture) are talented and energetic and just all-around good people who have hearts for others.

Tonight was a big planning meeting for our brand new S.P.I.N. Ministry (serving Single Parents In Need). We have a HUGE kickoff event planned for Saturday, December 2nd, so we have a lot to straighten out very soon. I feel like we accomplished a lot tonight, even though several more of our talented/energetic/all-around good people with big hearts couldn’t attend.

Since we’ve pinpointed “single-parent families” as the ministry focus of our young adult group, I’ve really noticed how big a task we’re taking on. Pam Willingham, the Single Parent Family Minister at the Richland Hills Church of Christ (Fort Worth, Texas) recommended a book to me, which I bought and read. In it, today’s single-parent families are referred to as our modern-day widows and orphans…. That’s worth thinking about, especially in light of what James says about pure religion…

So I’m in a very good mood tonight. Getting together with great people for a great cause…

Not a bad way to spend a Monday night.

We don’t watch a lot of movies at our house, not that we’re on some sort of protest or anything, but for some reason we just don’t carve out a lot of time for them. I think the last movie my wife and I actually went to see was that thoughtful presentation on life in the South, Talladega Nights. Sad, huh?

Well, today, our youngest went to a birthday party for a friend, and we thought we’d sneak over to the theater. But alas, nothing was playing (worth seeing) in the timeframe we had, so instead, my wife rented A Lake House. Now I know this is a chick flick, but I’m secure in my manhood. I’m not a big fan of movies in this genre, but I enjoyed The Notebook, so I’m open to giving anything a shot.

Admittedly, The Lake House has a weird premise. Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves attempt to date through a magical mailbox even though they aren’t living in the same year. That’s weird. I don’t care who you are.

Although from what I remember about the dating scene, dating someone who lived in a different year than you isn’t such a horrible idea.

But I digress…

It was a good movie in spite of the far-out premise. Jody cried… again (she’s seen this movie before). And I enjoyed spending a couple of hours sitting by her, movie or not.

I’m too analytical to really enjoy very many movies (outside of those that beg you to analyze them – like, for instance, that thoughtful rendering of life in the South, Talladega Nights). So instead of either simply enjoying the clever storyline in The Lake House, or crying my way through a box of Kleenex, it got me to thinking: I wonder how long one would wait for love?

I guess The Lake House reminded me of the story of Jacob waiting and working for the woman he loved (Rachel). It’s quite romantic, in a tragic sort of way. To love without any immediate gratification. To wait for someone.

It’s a pretty good sermon I think.

Here is the email I sent to my church family yesterday afternoon updating Danielle & Shawn’s situation:

I spent a few hours with Shawn & Danielle and Angie & Carol this morning at the USA Women & Children’s Hospital in Mobile. They have great facilities and GREAT doctors there, so Danielle and the baby are receiving top notch medical care.

Danielle is only at 24 weeks, so this is a challenging situation. She wasn’t due until February 28. But there’s reason for hope. As one of her doctors said this morning, just “keep the faith.”

The baby weighs 1 pound, 7 ounces right now, so he needs to do some more growing. They have given Danielle medicines, etc. to prevent infection and to try to keep her from going into labor. It is really a waiting game on the baby according to her main doctor over there – he could decide to come any time, or he could just be content to keep on growing in his momma’s tummy for a long time.

They told Danielle that they would take the baby at 32 weeks if he hasn’t come by then (just after New Year’s), so it could be up to eight weeks of bed rest at the hospital in Mobile.

The family was quite emotional this morning, but by the time I left Danielle was laughing and telling me stories about Ethan and their dog and just carrying on a normal conversation. It seemed to me that they were just being able to catch their first collective breath. Now they are just needing to take things one day at a time and wait on the baby to make up his mind when he’s coming.

So…

Keep praying for this family. Things could be much worse, but they could have been much better, too. Let’s pray that that baby takes his time and grows some more “inside” for the next several weeks, and that the talented medical staff in Mobile keeps performing the healing ministry that they’ve been called by God to do.

Yours to count on,
Al