Road Trip: 7 Stops in 9 Days

It's true...although we are tired from living out of a suitcase and a different bed each night, we feel very successful in our trip to visit family. We left from Memphis to travel to Nashville and eat a delicious meal with my parents and leave little Jack to have the time of his life. The next morning we drove to our first pit stop: Mamaw! Our time there was extra special because Phyllis and D were there as well! We spent the day eating Mamaw's cookies, talking, and playing outside. That night we enjoyed a home cooked meal with Uncle Phil (Mire) and Aunt Debbie, Rose, Curry, Uncle Phil (Menard), and Aunt Peggy. After dinner we got to meet Curry's girlfriend Kate and hear his many stories of being a policeman in Dayton.

Mamaw's backyard.

The next day we went to Tipp City, which was an adorable little town that had cute little antique stores and several impressive art galleries. Mamaw treated us (while D worked) to a yummy lunch at a restaurant in an old bank, and we ate inside the vault!

Pharoah! Pharoah!

Coldwater Cafe...in the vault.

Randy loving on his Mamaw.

Next we stayed with Grandma and Grandpa. They, too, live in Dayton. Whenever we visit Gr'ma and Gr'pa we MUST play Euchre. (Randy would be so proud I spelled that correctly!) We played this for hours while eating about three different desserts! The best part of visiting many people on a trip is that they all want to have good food for you, so you get tons of it...and all for free! Gr'ma is infamous (to Randy and I) for her fruit pizza, and we enjoyed it! They also treated us to Donatos...notice how everything we do is centered around food? Most importantly, we got to catch up on so many things and simply enjoy each others company.

Before we left to go to the Reds game.

Stop #3 was the longest stop...in Cincinnati. We got to Jodi and Matthews and ate some Skyline Chili before going to the Reds vs. San Francisco Giants game. It was the first time going to a game with "locals" and we had so much fun! Our seats were excellent and the weather was just about perfect....oh, and it was a pretty high scoring game (which meant lots of fireworks) and the Reds won in the end! About halfway in, everyone started cheering about a man's face being on the jumbotron. Randy informs me that the man is Pete Rose and he is sitting about a hundred yards away from us in the ballpark. Then comes another big Reds hall of famer, Joe Morgan. Pretty cool.

Joey Votto.

Love you, Joda.

My brother-in-law bought me a foam finger. Ha!

Go REDS!

There he is...Pete Rose.

Oh, how I love you, Great American Ballpark.

The following day was probably the most picture worthy, yet I have no pictures. We went to King's Island while Jodi and Matthew worked. We got there early enough to ride all of the roller coasters before lunch. We then grabbed some lunch and our swimming suits and went to the waterpark for the rest of the day. The reason for no pictures is that I ran around without my purse, camera, nothing...literally. It is such a strange feeling to be running around a waterpark with nothing on but a bathing suit (not even shoes) and realizing that everyone else is half-naked too. By the end of that day, we were pooped! Good thing Jodi and Matthew prepared a yummy meal on their new grill and then we all watched a movie together.

Stop #4...pit stop in Louisville to see our adorable nephew, Luke, and his mom and dad. Danny is in his worst month ever of residency, but had the day off and was a trooper despite how tired he must have been. I won't say too much about Luke, because the pictures show you just how cute and precious he is!

Luke got to see some animals at a farm and mimicked all of their sounds..so cute!

At the park.

He loved the baseball with Uncle Randy...and loves playing and poking Aunt Lynsi.

Stop #5...after a night of rest in Nashville. We went over to visit our oldest nephew, Grayden, and his mom and dad in LaVergne. Grayden is 100% boy, a ball of energy and the best entertainment there is. He is in love with all things sports, and he is shown mimicking all the moves from a football video game below.

And you have to love his precious batting position.

Randy reading Curious George to Grayden before his nap. Look at that adorable face!

Next we loaded up a bunch of food and hitched up the Tucker boat for a fun-filled two days at the lake. We got to Center Hill just fine but then had a typical Tucker day...

First it rained on us while we were anchored and eating our lunch. Seriously, it looked as though the cloud was ONLY over us. Oh well, what harm does a little rain do when you're already on the lake?

There's my daddy...the brave driver.

This is when we discovered the boat was taking on a lot of water. A whole lot. Most of you know Randy is not the biggest guy, and the boat had trouble pulling him. Uh oh.

Then the boat decided to turn off, but don't worry it does this a lot. That's why we have an oar.

This, however, proved to be the end of our lake trip. If you notice the water coming out in the picture above, imagine it pouring out for several minutes. Not good. At least we got one good day out of it.

That night we spent time with Pa at his new home. We had a really good time just sitting and enjoying time with him. The following morning, after a donut run, we went to Burgess Falls. This park is only about 15 minutes outside of Cookeville and is absolutely beautiful!! Too bad the weather was hot and muggy, but we still had a great time!

East Tennessee is so much prettier than Memphis.

The brave hikers.

Mom and Pa.

Admiring the beauty of the falls.

The end. The only part of the trip left was to pry Jack away from his best friends and set off home to hot, sweaty Memphis.

CTT

The past three days, Randy and I have attended Community Transformation Training. For those of you that think we are crazy for moving into the hood of Memphis, at least we have now had training! The lecture/discussion/training was led by a man named Chuck who spends his entire life (with his wife and two kids) going to the most unreached people groups in the world. He sees the most dangerous places on earth, and it is all because of the Great Commission where we are commanded to go, preach, and heal. To give you an idea of how much of the world still remains without hearing the gospel, here is a map showing the progress. Green is where there are growing churches, yellow is where there is formative or nominal church, and RED is unreached. Some people call this the 10/40 window because they mostly sit along the 10/40 longitude, latitude location on the world map.

85% of the world's poorest people are in these red, unreached areas, and they only receive .5% (that is POINT 5) of "missionary" money!

(This image is from www.joshuaproject.net which is a great website to learn about these unreached areas.)

So although we were getting our training from someone who deals with places like North Africa and Afghanistan (and you wouldn't believe all the stories he shared...absolutely incredible stuff), we learned so many practical ways to spread the gospel to the urban areas of Memphis. Here is the basic CTT Strategy that seems most effective (the ABC's)

-A: Access the community (You can imagine this is much harder to do in remote Afghanistan than it is in Binghampton, Memphis. But this is definitely the first step.)

-B: get Behind closed doors

-C: Care for the Needy (we brainstormed many, many ways we can do this in our new neighborhood)

-D: Make Disciples

-E: Empower the church (church is simply a group of disciples, not a big fancy building, so this is where encouragement and strengthening takes place, and then leave to let that group of disciples grow while more can be reached)

Another thing we talked about that I want to mention very briefly is an authentic disciple. First of all, disciple is used 295 times in the New Testament, while the term Christian is only used 3 times. So why do we label ourselves Christians and not disciples? Probably because the word disciple means something so much stronger. The bottom line is this: You have to BE a disciple to MAKE a disciple, and being a disciple means readily giving up everything you have to follow Jesus.

I wish I could share the six pages of notes I took from the past three days, but I won't. We learned many practical ways of talking about the gospel with those who either do not know it, or do not want to hear it (those who are burned from it). I now have nine lessons in my bag of tricks for spreading the word of God.

The encouragement we received in short was this: It is always right to share the gospel.

"For the harvest is plenty but the workers are few...therefore, I am sending you out as lambs among wolves..."

May Days

I've been a little behind in blogging, and all I can say for that is that I have been enjoying some summer time...which means I have been doing absolutely nothing! Anyways, here is a recap of May.

First, school closed up and with it we had to say goodbye to the principal of AMS, Mrs. Patricia Prescott. Having only taught at the school for two years, I can't say I know her as well as others, but the moment I interviewed with her I knew she was going to be a wonderful person to work for. Rarely can you find someone so loving, yet stern enough, to create an excellent middle school environment. I mean, let's be honest, middle school years are the worst...but somehow she made them shine. She will be missed so much as she retires to spend time with her grandchildren. She brought so much to everyone at AMS.

The drama teacher, Mrs. P, and me!

Mrs. P and my fellow art teacher, Mrs. Sledge.

Next up was a Saturday that my parents and sister drove all the way to Memphis to see our new house. Pictures will come of that soon, but since we can't move until August, I didn't want to be too premature. My aunt Sandi came too and we had a wonderful day. They got to see the house and eat at Caritas Village, a community center slash restaurant slash soup kitchen slash art slash yoga slash..you get the picture. The lunch was delicious and I found out a little more about ways I might be able to help out in the Binghamton neighborhood. Caritas means "love for all" in Spanish and the woman who opened this place has done a great job living out that message. It was great for our family to see the place and get a feel for the neighborhood.

After lunch, we dropped the boys off at the apartment to do this...

And us girls did this...

Other happenings in May have included the Binghamton baseball games. The Brewster Navigators are part of a little league and they have been having a good year. Coach Randy has had a great time getting to know and coach these little guys. I have enjoyed seeing the team improve, and since Randy and I always drive a crew to the game, there are some pretty funny conversations.

I play with the siblings of the little Navigators, and we have a pretty good time too.

This past weekend I got a free trip to Nashville..woohoo! Randy had a Christian Medical/Dental Health conference at Belmont University and I hitched a ride with all the medical folk to spend a few days at my old stomping grounds with Kelsa at the cabin. I even got to sleep in my old bed and walk around the West End area and eat at Rumba with Kelsa and Jessilou who I haven't seen in ages! We had so much fun sitting out by West End Avenue and just catching up on everything. The second night Kelsa and I cooked salmon, garlic green beans, and quinoa with spinach and feta. Boy was it yummy...I LOVE quinoa! You should go buy some..it's pretty delicious. I also got to meet up with my mom for lunch at Bread & Company which I miss greatly. And, oh, I got to visit with Peanut too, of course! Before meeting up with Randy and the medical gang to leave on Saturday, we had a Tucker Pancake Breakfast at my parents and Kelsa's dad came over to enjoy the morning. All in all, a perfect three days. You know your having a good time when you sit at the kitchen table talking for two hours after eating your meal...and that is what we did each time!

I had to share this. After the flood in Nashville, the news stations all asked that Nashvillians conserve water. Kelsa might get the award for best conserver, because look at her bill! $1.50!

Last day of May, Memorial Day! Coming back from Nashville, I felt really sick for a day or two, but made it to our Memorial Day cookout at our friend's house. We had tons of people from the neighborhood (well, what will be our neighborhood). Nothing like celebrating the first of summer with friends, burgers, watermelon, and smores...yummmm!

The end. Happy June everyone!

D2 is THROUGH!!

D ONE is D-O-N-E and now D2 is THROUGH!!!

Hallelujah!

While Randy does not get quite as excited about these things as I do, I can tell he is happy that the summer is here and that he is now officially a third year dental student. That means his post graduate career is halfway over! Only two years left!! The best part is that these next two years will be what he has been looking forward to most...working on patients. First up? Me, of course! Did you SEE all that plaque? Yuck!

After Monday, I will be enjoying summer as well and Randy and I are looking forward to visiting with family, going to a Reds game, and spending time at King's Island this summer. Unfortunately for him, summer ends in July. I, however, will have until August!

Memphis Girls Trip 2010

This past weekend was absolutely amazing! Two of my best friends came to visit me in Memphis, and we had an awesome time. I took off Friday and they came in time for lunch that day. In two days, we managed to cram in Graceland, Peabody Ducks, Central, Purse Flea Market, a Binghampton tour of the new house, Young Avenue Deli, Memphis Zoo, Pottery Barn and WIlliams Sonoma Outlet, AND..Happy Mexican. Oh! And they came to church with us Sunday morning and although we had plans to do the last Memphis-loving meal of Jerry's Sno Cones, it was closed.

We also had an early (mini) birthday celebration for Julianna since I won't be in Nashville on her real birthday.

The entire weekend was so much fun, and so comforting to know that after so much time and such different daily lives, we can all come together and be best friends again. I look forward to more trips in the future....after all, they still have to try the sno cones!

Here is our weekend in pictures..

Elvis' Home...Graceland. Living room...pretty cool stained glass

Kitchen...extremely dark

So many grammies

LOTS of rhinestones

In the Racquetball Court room, which now holds Elvis costumes and many awards.

This once was a mansion...strange, huh?

My camera died after this...although I can't say I needed too many more pictures of Graceland.

No pics of Peabody, but Julianna got a great one of the ducks making their walk along the red carpet and into the elevator.

At Central BBQ. We were going to the BBQ Festival, but because of the rain decided to go to the never-disappointing Central.

Skypeing with Sarah Kate in Western Australia...how cool! She got to be a part of the weekend halfway across the world. We miss you, Kater!

Okay, this takes some explaining. After our baked french toast breakfast, Randy decided he would help us have fun. Seconds later he brought out plaque indicator and had Julianna's mouth solid blue. Since she is a dental hygienist, she didn't think this was too weird. Jessi and I, however, thought this was the funniest thing ever and laughed till we cried. We got suckered into taking the test next, and guess who had the worst amount of plaque?? ME! Looks like my husband will have plenty of work to do on his favorite patient soon!

Possibly the most unattractive picture ever...but too funny not to share.

Ostrich! Apparently there is an Emu in Binghampton that I hope to befriend.

Have I ever mentioned how much I love these guys?

Panda takin' a breather

HUGE Hippo!

First timers at the Memphis Zoo

I love these guys

Posing with the elephant statue

Randy loves candids..

About to go out on the town...actually just Happy Mexican to eat

Loudest restaurant ever..

Happy Mexican

Picture doesn't do it justice...wish it was pictured in the skillet. Cookie dough barely baked with ice cream on top!

Julianna with her presents.

Me and the birthday girl, in her birthday scarf.

Perspective

I write this post with a lot of emotions. When Randy and I moved to Memphis for him to go to dental school, neither of us had any idea what was in store for us spiritually. What has happened is a complete change of perspective, and a new calling as to what we want to do with the life God has given us.

Blessed. What does that mean to you? Up until recently, I thought it meant the gifts I had been given in life that I was truly thankful for. But now my perspective has changed. What I have learned is that God has blessed us as a means to share those blessings, and use them to glorify his Kingdom. Just like the parable of the talents in the book of Matthew, I have been given certain gifts to use them for a distinct purpose. And that is both a challenge and a responsibility. I have never challenged myself in my faith, it has always just been some sort of a constant piece of me, but not something I really worked at. What is becoming more and more real to me is that being a disciple of Christ is not an easy task. You simply cannot read the bible and come to this conclusion. The trials that come are what force us to trust in God and put our hope in Him, something I have not always done.

With that being said, Randy and I have made a big decision...one that some of you already know, or might have seen coming with the past involvement we have had with the house church community. This summer we will be moving into Binghampton, a place many refer to as the "hood" of Memphis. Yes, it has plenty of homes owned by friends of ours...but it also has an extreme amount of diversity...skin color, ethnicity, refugees, families, drug users, criminals. I'd be lying to say I am not a little scared, but one thing I have been realizing is that satan puts fear in our lives for a reason...to keep us from doing powerful things in the name of God. Although we do not expect to change the people or the community by just being there, we want to place ourselves in an area where we can be examples of a life in Christ, and show love to some of those who need it most. We also see this as a stepping stone into (hopefully) bigger ways of being servants for Christ, whether that means work in Memphis, Nashville, Ohio, overseas, or wherever else we're needed.

Here are some words that sum up this long thought out reason for moving into Binghampton...

1. Trust
We are obsessed with security. Whether its financial, home, retirement, friends, family...we love to act as if we have control over our lives. Paul speaks of a trust in God that has him facing death every day. Randy and I say we place our trust in God, but do we really? What in our lives says that we rely on something that is not seen? We believe that being Christians requires us to put ourselves in uncomfortable and challenging situations. Situations that the bible tells us the world will not understand, but we do it because we trust in God and believe in the power of the gospel.

2. Calling

This is something that has been stirring up in us for more than a year now...something that would be impossible to not answer. Especially for Randy's future career as a dentist. While he used to see being a dentist as a wonderful professional career where he could be successful, have good working hours, etc., he now sees it as an amazing gift given to him to serve those in need. Since this has been revealed, I have seen Randy become more excited than ever about his career and how he can use it to advance the Kingdom.

3. Service

In Matthew 25, the last parable Matthew documents before Jesus was handed over to be crucified is the parable of The Sheep and The Goats. What I find most powerful about this parable is the misunderstanding of those who thought they had done everything needed to spend eternity with God.

³⁷"Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? ³⁸When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you?³⁹When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?'

⁴⁰"The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'

This passage speaks so urgently of our job as Christians to serve. I do not think it is a coincidence that this is one of the last parables Jesus gave in the flesh. In this message lies the biggest goal I wish to accomplish...to care less about myself, and more about others.

4. Community

Wealthy, poor, black, white...neighbors are neighbors, and Randy and I cannot wait to be a part of a neighborhood, a community. There is so much to a community that I find comforting, and when a community is strong, amazing things can happen. A communal garden, walking distance from church, providing for people who cannot provide in return, and owning an apartment where we can house guests who need a place to stay are just some of what we look forward to in our home in the Binghampton community.

5. Love

Last but not least, we are doing this out of love. We have met some of the most incredible people since opening up to this new environment. A family of Burundi refugees. A Mennonite. A roller derby chick and a biker dude. So many different people coming together in the name of Christ, that is love. And I want to know more of it, give more of it, and learn more about it.

We can never fully understand how God plans to use us in our lives, but we don't need to understand. As a door is opened for us, we have to have the faith to go through it. If we make it through that door, we have to look for the next one; even if it requires more faith than the first. One of Randy's favorite biblical quotes comes from the book of Job. As many of you know Job was a righteous man; in fact, the scripture tells as that there was no one on earth like him. Yet God chose to allow Job to suffer, and at his lowest point we are told that he is covered from head to toe with sores and sitting in a pile of ashes. For the next thirty some chapters Job and his friends try to understand why he is suffering, and they ramble on and on with their worldly knowledge and explanations. But in the rarest of occasions and to our benefit, the Lord decides to speak to Job...(Ch. 38) Job is quickly reminded of God's supreme authority and wisdom, and he can only utter a few words in response including: "Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know". God's will is so wonderful and perfect, even when it calls on us to suffer.

Below is a very dramatic and well done video by the people of thelastletter.org. The video is a discussion of the personal sacrifice that is required in seeking the Kingdom; part of this video highlights the efforts of Christ Community in Binghampton and surrounding urban areas.

Last Letter Documentary from Last Letter on Vimeo.

Please pray for us in this decision, that we will have the courage to do whatever it is God is wanting us to do in the community.