You Are Viewing Homestead Happenings

I have a friend who left a comment that seemed to question my intelligence about the incident that took place here. I want to explain myself. To borrow from Paul Harvey, here’s the rest of the story…

Our friends, Ralph and Christy Ramsey with their daughter Hannah, came to visit us in Virginia. It was a week after our last big snow, and there was more than 16″ on the ground in some places. After they arrived on Thursday, we all were planning a great sledding extravaganza on Friday. Being from the Dallas area, it was a little surreal that they got 9″ of snow there on the day they were flying out.

Ralph and I have been great friends since Carolyn and I got married in 1992. They were a young couple at First Baptist Church Garland, Texas where I served first as a lowly youth intern and then as a lowly Singles & Young Adult Minister. After I discovered that Ralph was rather gullible, he became one of our circle of friends primary targets for practical jokes. That is, until we realized that there’s not much point in playing jokes on Ralph since he so often does it to himself.

Ralph seems to always get hurt whenever we’re up to something. If you could amputate your leg with a ballpoint pen and a feather, Ralph would manage to do it. In fact, I’m convinced that many of the inane warning labels we see on products these days are simply because of accident prone folks like Ralph. He’s also exceptionally good at putting his foot in his mouth – a talent that I love to exploit.

However, it did seem like a good idea at the time on Friday when he suggested we video our daughters and wives sledding down the hill. Then he threw in a twist. Let’s (that would be me, Sam and Ralph) lock arms at the base of the hill and play “sled chicken.”

We were sledding near Lark Lane where there was a huge, snow-packed hill, and you could achieve near Space Shuttle launch speeds coming down the hill with a mere piece of plastic under you. So Ralph set up the video camera behind us, and the three of us locked arms to face the sledding missiles.

My rationale went something like this:

• Humor Ralph and don’t shoot down one of his “ideas.”
• Take some great close ups of  the girls coming down the hill with Carolyn’s fancy Canon which she had asked me to hold.
• The odds of us getting hit were minute. Most of us were falling off the sleds before we reached the point we were standing.
• Ralph’s ideas never work.

So there we stood. I’ve included the video again for your study of the event.

There are few observations I’d like to make about the incident above now that you’ve witnessed it:

• It is impossibly difficult to tell how fast someone is going on a sled heading towards you when you are zoomed in taking pictures of them.
• The response time of pulling the camera from your eyes, calculating the proximity of a rocketing sled, telling your body which way to go to avoid impact and then moving is almost negligible.
• If you should attempt to escape injury by leaping to the right where your son and friend are pushing you into the sled’s path, you will most likely fail.
• One’s feet are not meant to occupy the same space where one’s head was previously in a 2 second span.
• A Canon D40 with zoom lens does not make an adequate cushion for your ribs but in fact can survive such an impact with no adverse affects.
• A 42 year-old man’s ribs are able to absorb a Canon D40 mass impression without breaking.
• It’s disconcerting to hear one’s daughter more concerned about the aforementioned camera than she is her father who is lying a quivering mass of wounded flesh.

Now, watch this version of the video in order for me to point out a few more observations that are only intelligible in slow motion:

• My wife’s and Christy ear-to-ear evil grins.
• How high my feet got.
• The sudden realization after I bring the camera down from my eyes that I am in trouble.
• Ralph’s bracing himself to push me into the path of the sled.
• How narrowly Sam missed being plowed over as well.

Ralph was supremely proud of himself. Heck, I would have been too. It was a flawless plan and execution. The odds of that happening are astronomical – especially with the two of us involved.

Now that you know “the rest of the story,” I hope you agree with me that I am in no way to be second-guessed for my participation in the incident. It was all a fluke. You would do the same thing if you were in my shoes. Right?

It’s a long story that I’ll supply later this week when I get to it, but without any further ado, here’s “The Fall 2010.”

The Fall – Real time from Jeff Noble on Vimeo.

And in slow motion:

The Fall 2010 from Jeff Noble on Vimeo.

I guess I’ve got sweet blood.

I’ve known I was an easy target for stinging creatures for a long time now. I still haven’t quite figured out why they like me. Yet because I am well aware that flying insects are truly WMDs (Wasps of Mighty Destruction), I am pretty sensitive to their presence.

That hypersensitivity is probably the reason that when I am caught unaware by one buzzing by my ear or face, I tend to lose all composure and simply run away yelling. My neighbor in Monticello witnessed this headlong flight from what looked like nothing from his side of the street one day. That red wasp chased me from the front yard to the back driveway before I lost him.

Why me?

On two different occasions in the past couple of years, they dive-bombed me from wasp nests tucked under the eaves of our carport. My neck was the target one day. My scalp received their ire on another.

I was doing absolutely nothing to them. Tossing kitchen trashbags into a green can shouldn’t provoke a wasp’s wrath. Neither should power blowing a dirty driveway. However, on both occasions, I earned a welt from wasps. Red wasps, in particular, graciously leave you with a throbbing reminder of their attack.

I had hoped our move to Virginia made peace with the pests. I assumed that whatever contract was out on me in Arkansas was nullified across state lines. Surely their sting had no jurisdiction so far from home.

Yet blood is thicker than wings, and Wednesday night at 2:00 a.m., I was stealth stung.

It’s the middle of January here. Cold. Wasps, bees, etc. – supposed to be out of commission; people should be none of their buzzness during this time of year.

Yet, the agony struck suddenly. Because of my familiarity with sting pain over the years, I grasped the reality of what happened in a nanosecond. My wife was more skeptical… and mad. You see, my revelation happened like this:

Zzzzzz… (from both sides of the bed)

Sting.

A liquidly fluid moment of me leaping from the bed, screaming, throwing back covers and landing on my feet. Yes, it was all in one smooth motion. I was quite proud of my dexterity – in spite of the pain. A dash across the room to the light switch flooded the bedroom with illumination.

Carolyn was unimpressed. Even wrathful.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!!!!”

“I JUST GOT STUNG!”

“No, you didn’t. The cat probably clawed you through the bedspread.”

Sure enough, there sat the dazed kitten – having been flung over the end of the bed in my liquid fluid motion referred to above.

Enter a moment of self-doubt.

Yet, the throb on my leg – and after inspection, the wound, ushered in a surge of confidence.

“NO, I WAS STUNG!”

My powers of deduction and observation now fully functional – in spite of the hour – I began to separate the bed coverings like the layers of an onion. And what did Sherlock Noble find? Between the bedspread and the electric blanket – both above the sheet – a crafty critter with a little walkie talkie whispering, “My position has been compromised. I repeat; my position has been compro… SMACK.”

Yes. Without regard to our present culture of sustainability, I slaughtered the wasp with my houseshoe. Unceremoniously, I then flushed him.

My next liquid smooth fluid motion was slipping back into bed, dragging the covers back over me, and casting a smug look of supreme stinging insect knowledge at my now-incredulous spouse.

Unfortunately, she fell asleep rather quickly – oblivous to the fact that she was supposed to lay awake in self-recriminating guilt for hours for having doubted me. It was I who lay there checking Twitter, Facebook and playing Paper Toss until my leg quit throbbing.

POSTLUDE

I was relating this tale to VT BCM Director Darrell Cook at Panera this morning when a revelation struck me about my wasp curse.

Years ago, I remember vividly one beautiful day in Little Rock watching bees buzz among the clover in our yard when a wonderfully siblingish idea came to mind. After coaxing my sister Amy outside, I then began to demonstrate my liquid fluid reflexes by showing her that “I was so fast” that I could catch a bee and throw it without harm.

I demonstrated this throw a few times so quickly that I knew she was unable to determine that it was an air bee I was throwing. Then came the challenge.

“Let’s see if you’re that fast.”

I do remember having to encourage her and with brotherly love assure her that she was, indeed, a very fast girl for her age.

After a few moments of watching them – I’m assuming getting the timing in her mind right – she bent, scooped and threw. But intermingled with her smooth motion was also a loud scream. And a look of furious awareness.

I don’t even remember her saying anything to me. She ran past me into the house, crying loudly.

I stood there uncomfortably. In doubt. I had not thought past the fun of the moment. Sounds like a great sermon, doesn’t it?

I was still standing there among the clovers when the front door opened again. Amy came out. Behind my dad.

The rest is thankfully fuzzy. I do remember him saying something like, “Did you tell your sister she could throw a bee?”

That incident, I realized this morning at Panera with painful clarity, may be the source of my wasp curse.

So… neighbors and friends… if you see me running with panic about my yard this summer from what appears to be nothing, you know now. Wasps have jurisdiction from state to state, and they know where I am.

Thank you, Google, first of all, for providing free airport WIFI in Baltimore. I despise airport WIFI charges, and Boingo is one of the worst offenders, but when we arrived for a layover enroute to New Mexico, we were delighted to find the message that Google has partnered with Boingo to provide free WIFI in the airport for the holidays through January 15. That’s today. We snuck onto the worldwide web at the 9th hour on Google’s good grace and dime. Thanks, Google!

Last Christmas

This is the first time in 17 years of marriage that we’ve not been in New Mexico for New Year’s. Due to our move to Virginia, our annual holiday schedules/traditions have had to be adjusted. We’ll get there later today and spend a few days in Hobbs with Carolyn’s family for our last Christmas of 2009 (or is it our first one of 2010?).

We are super grateful to Carolyn’s folks for their generosity and grace which consistently make trips like this possible. I guess we should also thank Southwest Airlines for partnering with the credit card company that her folks use that results in free tickets. Either way, we’re very, deeply thankful.

Laughing all the way

If you’ve been following our journey so far on Twitter (mine or Carolyn’s), you’ll notice that our kids have been assaulting our funny bones with one-liners. Just in the last 30 minutes, Adelyn has observed that the reason airline tickets are expensive is because of the moving walkways in the airport. She also noticed a very youthful army guy decked out in fatigues. Whether it was his boyish appearance or his height (not much taller than she), we don’t know, but she busted out with, “What? Is he like the drummer boy or something?”

Sam’s humor has been more slapstick. And annoying. But he manages quite well to keep me smiling through my grimaces. With effortless ease, he consistently manages to stick his elbows in my side, include my bald spot in every conversation, and roll his eyes at my humor (thus suggesting that it isn’t funny which we all know is not true). I just don’t know how Carolyn’s family managed with her all those years, because it’s so obvious that Sam is just like her…

Over the river and through the woods

We’ve got quite a journey to get to grandma’s house today. I’ll keep you updated as I’m able through layovers and Google’s goodness. After driving to Raleigh-Durham last night, we’ll stop in Baltimore – Little Rock – Dallas – Midland. We don’t get off the plane in Little Rock, but if you’re there today and reading my blog (which amounts to my mom), wave and we’ll wave back.

On a curious note, it was one year ago today that Captain Sullenberger safely landed  his U.S. Airways flight in the Hudson River after it was crippled by a flock of birds hitting one of the jet engines. I would rather keep it “over the river and through the woods” rather than vice versa.

My best friend was born 39 years ago today.

It’s amazing to think we’ve been married for 17 years, but we’ve been friends since her freshman year in college. I was a senior when I first met her. I was working at Third Street Baptist Church in Arkadelphia, Arkansas as their youth minister.

I needed someone to help me teach the youth girls on Sunday nights for discipleship while I focused on the guys. That impulse to divide the youth group by gender was one I’ve forever thanked the Lord for.

It was then that Carolyn agreed to help me – albeit with the warning that she would “never” date me. Apparently, she suspected my motivations were less than holy.

However, I had come to know that Caro was as beautiful spiritually as she was physically, and I was grateful when she agreed to help disciple and teach those young girls at our church.

Each Sunday evening after church we would wind up at the Wendy’s in Caddo Valley, discussing where our youth were spiritually and how we could encourage them in their growth. Those long conversations inevitably would meander to laughter and to deep discussions about life, dreams, and the heart.

Over the course of months, our hearts and common vision for life connected in a way that neither of us was prepared to acknowledge. Carolyn went home (New Mexico) after that spring semester, and it was in her absence that I realized (with some friends’ help) that I was genuinely melancholy.

It’s a long story from there (you can pick it up here if you’re bored), but the “rest of the story” as Paul Harvey used to say is that 17 years later, we are still laughing and having heart-to-hearts.

Her beauty is more alluring to me today than ever before. She has two ways of laughing – one is a charming and disarming giggle. The other is a raucous cackle that rattles the china. Her love for Christ and her simple way of serving others with hospitality, phone calls and gifts has been felt by so many. And our kids… wow. They are the direct beneficiaries of a mother who loves them without reservation.

So on this Christmas Eve, I wish my best friend a genuinely happy birthday. I love her.

It’s nice to have a sled run, with jumps, in our own backyard…

It was one of those weekends as a leader that you anticipate/dread with equal measures of enthusiasm and uncertainty. Our church had an opportunity to host the Glory in the Highest concert tour here in Blacksburg. After deliberation and an email survey, we jumped at it.

There were more than 900 folks at the concert Friday night, and we surpassed the break-even point. While it was never a financial-only perspective for me, I knew that there might be those in our church who would look at it that way, and I was grateful that those results might assuage any concern they had.

One person told me at the concert, “Congratulations on the success of this event.” The comment was made in reference, I perceived, to the amount of people in attendance. And the comment broke my heart in a way. Success at such an event is never measured in terms of numbers and attendance. Biblically, we can only view success as to whether God was glorified and honored in the context and whether we are faithful and obedient.

Jesus Christ was clearly painted as glorious, majestic and worthy of worship and honor from the stage by the artists, and because of that, I was deeply grateful to have been a part of the event. My prayer is that folks who attended, helped and prayed for the event were encouraged to discover that life’s ultimate joy rests in an authentic love relationship with the Father.

Snowy Saturday

We awoke Saturday a.m. to a thickening layer of snow on the ground. It snowed steadily most of the day, finally clearing up around 4-ish. It was simply beautiful, and my kids leapt out of bed, dressed with no sense of grogginess, and were outside in a few moments. If only they treated school days like that…

It was surreal and beautiful. Most of the snows we experienced in Arkansas came after December. One of our church members related that this snow “really didn’t count” as a significant snow. It was more of a dusting. (It was 3-4 inches!!). Man, are we unprepared! My toes have been icicles since last week when the temps started staying stubbornly in the 20s at night. I wore two pairs of socks to our worship service last night.

I had planned to avoid the snow play. However, after helplessly watching two different fathers on our street laboriously build Frostys, I was eventually guilted into creating our own version of a frozen snow human. Sam and I pelted one another with snowballs for a while before my one hand was frozen solid (I had on a nice mitten but couldn’t find its match so on the other hand, I was wearing a cotton glove I use for subzero scooter rides).

Carolyn was out shopping for most of the day, and when I learned she was returning, I told her to look for our snow creation. When she pulled up, she said, “It’s dead.” It had fallen over. Bummer.

Finally… December Nights

Now you see why this was a “Big Weekend.” Our church moved its worship services to the evenings during the month of December. We have creatively called this “December Nights.” It’s…

a wonderful, warm and inviting December of worship and celebration of Christ’s birth! There will be NO MORNING WORSHIP SERVICES during December; instead, we’ll be meeting each Sunday at 5:00 p.m. at the BCM at VT for “December Nights.” This is a superb opportunity to invite friends, neighbors and coworkers for 1 hour of contagious joy involving worship and teaching! Come celebrate Christ with us in December!

We experimented with December Nights last year at Journey Church, and our congregation there loved the break in schedule and the ambience. This past Sunday evening was our first DN here. We met at 5:00, enjoyed some hot chocolate and cookies, and then we sent out a large group into the neighborhoods around Virginia Tech to sing Christmas carols.

They returned, frozen, but cheerful, and then we enjoyed a time of worship and teaching centered around the Advent theme of Hope. As folks exited back into the frigid night air, and we cleaned up the BCM, I was thankful for all that happened in a few days.

It was a big weekend.

Here’s our annual ElfYourself video. We’ve been practicing for months:

We woke early today to go eat Thanksgiving breakfast with the Cook family. That itself was wonderful, but in the grand perspective of things, it’s rather surreal.

Darrell and Laura have been great friends for a long time – since 1995 when Carolyn and I first arrived back in Arkansas for me to serve as a campus minister. Darrell was then at Arkansas State’s BCM, but he had served at the BCM at UAM before me. He has served the last 11+ years as the BCM Director at Virginia Tech, and he continues to love and disciple college students in a fantastic way.

Last year, having Thanksgiving breakfast with the Cooks would have been a non sequitur. While we have corresponded over the past 11 years, it’s only been occasional. But 2009 finds us in Virginia too, and breakfast with the Cooks is not far-fetched; rather, it’s convenient and comfortable. They live just down the street.

But the time between November 2008 and 2009 has been a long journey. It’s amazing the difference a year can make in our lives.

Last year, we were smack in the middle of health issues with Carolyn. If you’re a new reader, you can catch up on that in this series of entries. This year, we’re significantly outside our comfort and support zone, but we are experiencing God’s generous favor and goodness through renewed friendships, new friendships and the blessing of Christ through our new church in a new state.

We started Christmas decoration last night, and our day of Thanksgiving has included our time with the Cooks, a lovely lazy afternoon of football, napping, and the smell of turkey cooking. We’re also babysitting some friends’ cat, named Duke. His purring makes me a little jealous. That soft, steady noise is exactly what my soul would be doing if it could.

While we’re not without struggles and issues here, I am supremely grateful for my family, friends, and especially for the salvation offered through Jesus Christ. It’s a wonderful and humbling reality as a parent to know that your children have both given their hearts to Christ. It’s joyful as a husband to love and live with a wife who also loves the Lord and whose heart is devoted to Him.

I miss our Monticello friends and church family today. I miss my mom and dad and Little Rock family today. I wish you all well and pray for your gratitude in God to be overflowing. Eat a bunch and love the Lord hard today. He is good.

And for our new Virginia church family and friends… thank you for your gracious kindness and love. We are thankful and excited about the days ahead. But let’s take it one day at a time. This day is for Thanksgiving! We never know where we’ll be in a year.

Yes, Virginia, there is a Halloween.

Not that we thought it was an exclusively Arkansas entertainment event…

We spent a relaxing, overcast day with college football, a neighborhood parade and activities for kids in costume and of course, trick or treating. Adelyn was a clown this year – and she dressed as one too. She borrowed one of our church member’s orange clown hair that he uses only for Clemson games. It was a quite an honor, we were informed.

This was the first year that Sam purposefully chose NOT to go trick or treating. He did buy a scary mask and sat on the front porch with the candy bowl in his hands, unmoving. It was rather entertaining to watch the kids hesitantly approach and anxiously attempt to peer through his eye-holes to determine whether he was a real person or not.

On occasion, he would yell, and a couple of times (one being when Adelyn and friends came to the door), he hid in the garage and then burst out to chase the screaming menagerie down the driveway. All in all, it was a pretty successful event. I define “successful” as whether the kids raked in enough candy for the parents to have some as well.

We carved four pumpkins this year – VT, Boo, a Razorback and a traditional jack o’lantern. Carolyn was pretty proud of them.

And speaking of proud, Caro was pretty proud of this shot. The colors this past week hit their peak. It’s been pretty breathtaking. You know we’ve pointed it out excessively when Adelyn said in the car once last week, “Don’t say anything or mom will start talking about the T-R-E-E-S.”

I’ve been a fantasy football coach since 1992. One of my best friends on the planet – Mitch Bettis – and I have been in a league together almost every one of the past 17 years. Funny thing is I got married in ‘92 as well. So two great things happened that year. I’ve won four fantasy football championships in my lifetime. I rarely win arguments with Carolyn. But that doesn’t stop me from trying…. Just kidding, honey. Really.

This past weekend was kickoff weekend for our league, and it featured an epic father-son struggle. You see, Sam is in my league, and the random schedule generator pitted our teams against each other this weekend. We talked smack back and forth to each other this past week. I made fun of his girlie team, and he made fun of mine. We both offered other teams trades in an attempt to position our teams for the win.

On Sunday, the battle began, and when the smoke cleared Sunday night, I was winning by 20+ points. But he still had the Patriots defense left to play… against the Buffalo Bills. I was sweating it. Luckily, I had to go to Richmond on Monday, so I wasn’t in the house for the Monday night games. I didn’t want Sam to see me chewing my nails and bemoaning my inevitable defeat to Darrell Cook.

I watched in butt-clenching agony as the Pats swarmed Trent Edwards for a devastating sack in the final seconds as Buffalo attempted to comeback from the Pats’ astounding comeback. The final gun sounded. The players exited the field. The Pats emerged victorious in a nailbiter, one-point contest, 25-24. And so did my anemic team – 145-144.

I haven’t talked to Sam today, but I’m getting my victory dance and speech ready. I will do my best to be humble and to model for my loser of a son what a great fantasy football coach I am…

During Adelyn’s suffering with torticollis earlier this week, I prayed with her and asked the Lord to bring relief and healing to her neck. While talking to Carolyn on the phone during one of her atrocious spasms today, I heard Adelyn scrying (scream-crying) in the background, “Why is God doing this to me???!!!!”

It broke my heart.

The immensity of what I’d done by praying with her and for her struck me as I hung up the phone. In a moment of extreme suffering and pain, Adelyn was learning a hard lesson. God does not always relieve our suffering at the moment we want Him to. Sometimes the relief does not come at all.

I was also learning a hard lesson. When you pray hard and fervently with someone for their suffering, you are making them aware of your own faith and desires in the matter. When God does not answer quickly… What does that mean?

What it meant for Adelyn was that God had left her to suffer. Her 5th grade brain (and my 41 year-old gray matter) have a very difficult time processing that. Some would nod their heads and say that is why they doubt God’s goodness or even His existence.

Our reasoning goes something like this… The innocent suffer atrociously. The God of the Bible is supposed to be all-powerful and all-loving. If He permits such suffering and evil, He cannot be all-powerful, or He is not all-loving. Or as some conclude, He is… not.

On Thursday morning, as Adelyn began to have a better day, Blacksburg learned of a double homicide involving two Virginia Tech students. One campus… 35 deaths in the past two years. 32 of those occurred in one day that is branded in Hokie memory forever – April 16, 2007. On a national level, Americans speak of 9/11. As a Hokie nation, we’ve heard 4/16 spoken of in reverent terms. It altered the corporate consciousness of a campus… and a community.

Again, it begs the question of God… why?

I attended a campus worship service hosted by Cru on Thursday night with almost 1000 students. Many were dramatically affected by the deaths. Others were numb or disconnected. Yet the large gathering ended the evening in heart-felt worship.

One of the songs they sang was “Blessed Be the Name of the Lord.” It’s a rather profound chorus:

You give and take away

You give and take away

My heart will choose to say

Blessed be Your Name

All these reflections have been bouncing in my brain since Adelyn’s agonizing cry Wednesday.

As a father, I did for Adelyn on Wednesday what I did for her on Tuesday. I prayed. It was the same thing I did last night in a room packed full of confused collegians.

I read Psalm 56.3 this morning and cling to it as a life preserver:

“When I am afraid, I will trust in You.”

I just will.

My best advice? Don’t give up looking for answers, even if they are hidden at present. Those who continue seeking with an honest heart will find. Your discovery may not be “the” answer you started looking for; rather, you may uncover greater treasure in your quest – wisdom.

For Adelyn, she was eating Ramen Noodles Friday night with a sore neck. There were no more agonizing screams, but their memory and her experience will continue to teach my family some hard lessons.

Tuesday morning seemed to start off normally at the Nobles – that is, as normal as can be expected for a family who has recently moved to a new town with kids in new schools. Sam was already at school (his starts at 8:00 while Adelyn’s starts at 9:00). Adelyn was up and helping put up the dishes when she screamed in pain.

So began our experience with torticollis, or wry neck, which devolved again today into a fit of contorted agony for our nine year-old.

After her initial scream yesterday, Adelyn had to keep her head placed against her right shoulder for any relief. Even then, she had intermittent bursts of extreme pain which left her crying hysterically. I was at the church office, with a morning full of meetings ahead of me when Carolyn called, upset.

After relating that she’d not been able to find a doctor who could see Adelyn today, we decided to take her to the ER of the Montgomery Country Hospital. It was a nightmarish ride for them, with Adelyn unable to find any relief in any position.

After a loooong day yesterday which included a referral visit to a chiropractor, Adelyn was able to finally fall asleep after prescription muscle relaxers did their trick. Unfortunately, the pain began anew this morning.

This evening, she’s resting – but only after a tortured afternoon which required two more visits to the chiropractor. He was truly amazing. We walked in with a suffering little girl with muscle spasms that almost left her incoherent with pain and walked out after more than an hour of treatment and wonderful care with a little girl still sore and tender but able to get about without spasms reducing her to screaming.

We had to cancel our first small group that was to meet tonight because we had no idea where we’d be at this point. I asked for prayer for her today via Facebook and Twitter, and I’m grateful for the electronic intercession. There’s so much I’ve learned from all this (and still learning). Stay tuned…

In the meantime… wry neck is no laughing matter – in spite of numerous attempts to make it so in the last 24 hours.

A few weeks ago we got an invitation to a neighborhood block party. We were pretty jazzed up about the opportunity to meet neighbors and share our Arkansas wisdom with all interested parties. Carolyn made a delicious strawberry-ish dessert she calls “dump cake.” It bothers me to call it that, so I opt for the strawberry-ish dessert moniker.

At 5:08 this evening, we trudged up the street to where they had set up a tent and blocked off the traffic. What we discovered in the next couple of hours transported me back to recollections of Happy Days – albeit with an international flair.

We thoroughly enjoyed visiting, watching the kids play, and pigging out on chicken tenders and the like. We have neighbors from Korea, Sri Lanka, Japan, Poland, and China (those are just some that we met). It was awesome to see the kids all playing together; it was like a multi-cultural park.

Of course, most conversations got around to a “What do you do?” or “What brings you here?” question. When I responded that I was a pastor, I typically get deer-in-the-headlights looks. I’m going to have make up something better… maybe I can say I’m a cultural interpreter… or a metaphysical guide.

It’s football time…

I could say I’m a fantasy football guru – cause it’s that time of year again! Sam and I went to watch the Hokies practice today with one of his new friends from middle school. It was a lot of fun, and the stadium was packed on one side.