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Traveling Buddies – A Few Quotes, Some Old Pictures, and a Whole Lot of Sentimental

December 3, 2015 admindeb 2 Comments

Sammo, a little plush monkey, has traveled the world. He has been retired, of late, on the made bed of this couple who have quite surprisingly settled in a Richmond suburb. At least for now. Let me tell you his story and a bit of ours.

When I was much younger and still single, the call to other lands was strong in my heart. I studied nursing for the very reason of taking a useful skillset overseas. New Guinea was my decided destination. Due to some unforeseen bumps in the road, instead of New Guinea, I ended up in New Haven…Connecticut.

Preparing for that move meant saying goodbye to friends, for the first of many times in years to come. My friend, Paulette, who I would miss terribly, gave me Sammo. Mom and Dad helped me move my stuff from Atlanta to New Haven. I drove my car and Dad drove the rental truck. Mom was his copilot. Every time we were stuck in traffic, with more than a second to make eye contact, I’d look back and wave. Mom grabbed Sammo off the dashboard and waved one of his long arms back at me. It’s a memory that ever comforts me and has given Sammo traveling buddy status ever since.

Teaching at Yale University and joining in with a church plant there(Trinity Baptist Church), I discovered a very different and diverse culture. That move would be a stepping stone to adapting to cross-cultural living. Meeting Dave, the first week there, was also the sweetest part of that move, away from New Guinea…but not from the world.

We would eventually move overseas, taking three other traveling buddies with us, who would all leave home, in turn, from a foreign airport. I will be forever grateful we had these experiences overseas together.

Over these years, we have had wonderful traveling buddies – those from whom we learned volumes about living and loving across cultures. Others who graciously allowed us to come along to help as we could. Still others, in recent years, who don’t travel so much as they might like but are a strong support to those who do. This morning, many of these dear friends are on my mind.

I unfortunately don’t have words for how I feel about those we’ve walked alongside over the last twenty years, but others more wise and clever will fill in my lacking.

Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up! Again, if two lie together, they keep warm, but how can one keep warm alone? And though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him—a threefold cord is not quickly broken. – Ecclesiastes 4:9-12

Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

The traveler sees what he sees, the tourist sees what he has come to see. – G. K. Chesterton

Cairo, Egypt – Nile River

Photo Credit: Quotesgram.com

Photo Credit: Quotesgram.com

“All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.” – J. R. R. Tolkien

Blog - Traveling Buddies - Friends Forever

Photo Credit: Quotesgram.com

In those early days overseas, when Dave traveled internationally for work, I would tuck Sammo secretly in his bag. I wanted him to remember that he always had traveling buddies – with him and at home. Today…thinking about other traveling buddies through the years, I am grateful. Our Sammo isn’t forgotten. These traveling buddies with skin on will never be. Fare well and God speed, Dear Ones…to all the coming adventures.

Blog - Traveling Buddies - Gerry V retirement

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith. – Hebrews 12:1-2

All Good Gifts, Contentment, Fall, Family, Food & Drink, Friends, Holidays, Home, Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving or Gratefulness

Thanksgiving in America – Family/Friends, Food, Football, Falling Asleep Following Football, Forever Grateful

November 26, 2015 admindeb 3 Comments

At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us. – Albert Schweitzer

Happy Thanksgiving, y’all! If you’re in the USA, it’s a big day. Lots of food (all favorites you expect/hope to see every year) with those you love crowded around. Then football. Falling asleep from all the turkey.

Dave’s family is in Delaware and most of mine is in Georgia. We’ve had Thanksgivings with both, on sort of a rotation…but not nearly often enough, since we lived overseas for so many years. During that season of our lives, friends became family for us.

The food favorites varied somewhat depending on the family. If you knew us well, you would know which family gathering was that year, just looking at the food below. What are your “must-haves” on Thanksgiving Day?

Better even than the food is the time together with people we love. We can’t always be all together because of distance…but it is a good day spent together…I’m grateful for every memory we’ve made together. So thankful for family – with all its imperfections. God put us together, and I want to always honor that.

If one should give me a dish of sand and tell me there were particles of iron in it, I might look for them with my eyes, and search for them with my clumsy fingers, and be unable to detect them; but let me take a magnet and sweep through it, and how would it draw to itself the almost invisible particles by the mere power of attraction. The unthankful heart, like my finger in the sand, discovers no mercies; but let the thankful heart sweep through the day, and as the magnet finds iron, so it will find, in every hour, some heavenly blessing, only the iron in God’s sand is gold. Henry Ward Beecher

Football!Football!

[Sidebar about football and the mad cleanup that follows the huge Thanksgiving meal – this commercial.]

I cherish every memory these images represent and all the other memories not documented here. Thank You, God, for all Your good gifts to us. Your kindness is beyond our imagining.

“For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen.” – Romans 11:36

Look for things to be thankful for: a dear old face at an open door,

The table set for the family meal, a husband’s love that is true as steel.

A cushioned chair that you fixed yourself, your favorite books on a nearby shelf,

A green-hued twilight that sort of glows, the clean, fresh smell of a brier rose.

An old windjammer that you recall beating its way through an April squall,

Its old sides crusted with salty spray, limping in at the close of day.

The lovely odor of lemon peel; a humble man with a flaming zeal

For a worthy cause that he thinks is right; the feeling of warmth on a winter night.

Look for things to be thankful for: a braided rug on your bedroom floor,

A dormer window with curtains drawn, a bluebird singing across the lawn.

So much to be thankful for these days, so much to enjoy and love and praise. – Edna Jaques, Ideals, Vol. 57, #5

Prayers for those of you who have said goodbye, for now, to loved ones this year – thinking especially of our dear friend, Tom Elliff, whose beloved Jeannie went ahead of him to the Lord this summer. May God’s tender presence be a sweet comfort to Tom this Thanksgiving…as he continues to bless his family and serve the Lord.Photo Credit: Tom Elliff’s Family

Worship Wednesday – All Good Gifts – Thanksgiving Memories

Thanksgiving Poems

Ideals Magazine – Christmas Edition 2015

5 Organic Ingredients of a Grateful Heart by Steve Graves

VCU International Student Thanksgiving Dinner 2015; Photo Credit: Donna Ange Photography

All Good Gifts, God, Inspired, Lessons Learned, New Year, Redeeming & Restoring, Seasons, Thanksgiving or Gratefulness

Worship Wednesday – Stones of Remembrance – 12 Occasions Where We Saw God Act Mightily (Part 1)

December 31, 2014 admindeb 1 Comment

“Cross over before the ark of the Lord your God into the midst of the Jordan, and each one of you take up a stone on his shoulder, according to the number of the tribes of the children of Israel, ⁶that this may be a sign among you when your children ask in time to come, saying, ‘What do these stones mean to you?’ ⁷Then you shall answer them that the waters of the Jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord; when it crossed over the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. And these stones shall be for a memorial to the children of Israel forever.” – Joshua 4:5-7

New Year’s Eve morning. As the sun rises on this last day of 2014, I am drawn to the past, preparing for the future. This past weekend, my husband asked us as a church to reflect back on 2014 and to remember what God had done in our lives and in the world. Remembering God is a great work itself because other memories are stirred and gratitude floods the heart.

I want to share just 12 of those occasions here…12 for the 12 stones of remembrance perched on my kitchen windowsill. 12 remembrances of how God has shown Himself mighty in our lives.

1) God brought my husband and me together in a remarkable way. I was finishing paperwork to go overseas to work as a nurse and Dave was working on his doctorate almost 1000 miles away. Through a series of God-shaped events, I ended up, not overseas, but in his city teaching in the same university. We met in a tiny church, became close friends…and the rest is [our] history. I did get to work overseas…so nothing lost, and so much gained.

2) Our always-happy little girl at 4 years old became very sick. She didn’t seem sick to the pediatricians and so was misdiagnosed for several days. She was always a very stoic little kid when dealing with pain or sickness, and we knew something was terribly wrong. Finally on the 4th day of taking her to be seen by the doctors, and just in time, she was diagnosed with a ruptured appendix, peritonitis, and sepsis. Through this harrowing experience, God showed Himself mighty in her life, and ours, as we prayed over her and persevered in a messed-up situation…and she was healed.

3) Our 3rd child came home to us from South Korea. He had a rough start in life, and we knew giving him the care he needed would be a challenge for us. We also knew he was meant to be part of our family. As we boarded the plane to retrieve him, I had one of those moments of “what if’s”. What if we got ahead of God in our desire to add to our family? What if he wasn’t meant for us? A little late for what if’s…but that was the condition of my heart for that moment. Looking out the window of the plane on that damp late summer morning, the sun broke through. Against the mist shone a double rainbow. Not just one promise…but two. Peace stilled my heart. Through all of our son’s struggles and triumphs over these many years, I look back to that defining moment…and am settled.

4) Sometime in my 30’s, I had one of those crises of belief. This wasn’t a unique situation, but it was severe. No power in my life. No place, seemingly in God’s kingdom. Outwardly, all seemed well (active in church, occupied with children, friends, work). Inwardly, I was terrified that somehow I had missed God. Somehow, someway, what I had done to walk with God wasn’t enough. Then…a small group of us attended a conference on revival with Henry Blackaby and Richard Owen Roberts speaking. As I listened to Dr. Roberts speak, my thinking was transformed.

He was small behind the podium, and yet his whole countenance reminded me of what Moses must have looked like…after meeting with GOD Himself. I can’t tell you what he said, really, but there was a moment when the Holy Spirit touched my heart with the great truth of His work in my life. Tears flowed uncontrollably, and in silence, I worshipped the Savior of my life. There has never been a moment of doubt since for me regarding salvation and being a child of GOD.

5) Our nephew, Chad, died over 20 years ago. One day, I will write about him, but for now, suffice it to say he was a shining star in our family. Loving, funny, accepting of all his crazy family. He died instantly in a car accident at 23 years forever young.

We were in deep shock at his death…all of us. When the time came for us to view his body, in the casket, I remember thinking, “Well, God, this will be a big test of the sufficiency of Your grace.” As his mom, dad, only sister, grandparents and the rest of us circled that casket, a miracle happened. Grace abounded. All there was in those moments was deep love and amazing grace.

6) There did come a day for our family that we would take a job overseas. It’s one thing for me to decide to go as a single person. A whole other thing transpires when two people determine to gather up all the grandchildren and take them continents away from the grandparents. When we first told our parents, it was heart-wrenching…we felt their sadness as if it were our own. Then…the Lord worked… Not 24 hours after the weight of this news, my father-in-law retrieved their world atlas, and we poured over it together…and God moved again, and knit us all closer together even than we had been before.

We would go overseas…and the grandparents came. So grateful for them…and for the GOD who moves in our hearts.