Go back and read the last one before you read this one

All right. So I tell him I'll be there at 6. Means I have to be up at 5. I set the alarm but I also make it a point to "tell" myself to make sure I wake up at 5. Believe it or not, this tends to work for me. I can usually get up without an alarm clock if I "set" myself. I would feel terrible if I was late and he didn't get there because of me, so I was really feeling the responsibility of this when I went to bed at 11 that night.

Maybe that's why I woke up at 3 a.m.

Yep, 3 a.m.


I laid there and tried to go to sleep. No chance. My mind was all over the place, thinking about everything under the sun, although "under the moon" might be a more appropriate phrase in this situation. Two solid hours of being totally awake. Of course, I did start feeling a little drowsy around 4:56.


5:00 I get up, take a shower, dress, and head out. I'm driving downtown and am amazed at the people that are out and about. I mean, it's not rush hour traffic, but still.....I know what I'm doing driving around at this time of the morning. What's their excuse?



I get to the Mercy House at 5:45, pull up in a spot just before you get to the front of it and wait. 5:55 my man walks up and spots me. The look on his face tells me he is slightly surprised I'm already there, and maybe surprised I'm there at all.


He jumps in and we head out. We make small talk for a mile or two as I make sure we get on Castle Hayne Rd. going in the right direction. I ask him where the job is and he says Dell Labs. I knew they had put one out there but I didn't know where. I asked him where it was.


He said it was "out Castle Hayne road somewhere off to the left".

Nice.

Just the kind of directions you want at 0-dark: thirty in the morning.

I asked him if he'd been to the place before.

He said no, he was supposed to start yesterday but he didn't have a ride.

Just keeps getting better.

If you're from around here, you know Rocky Point is on the other side of Castle Hayne. The thing I equate with Rocky Point is Paul's Place, the hot dog joint. There's two of them within 5 miles of each other. I know where Carver Yacht road is. Outside of that I know very little of the place. 95% of all my rides out to Castle Hayne have been because Billy Vaughn lives out there.

So we're rolling down the road and it's still dark outside. I'm actually looking to the left every now and then as if it would really be on Castle Hayne road off to the left. Yeah right.

We pass the 1st Paul's Place and I say this is what I think of when people say Rocky Point. I tell him if we don't see it by the time we hit the other Paul's Place, we'll stop and ask for directions.

Well, we don't and so we do. He goes in (at this point you might be go Gary, why didn't you go in. Good question.) I watch the exchange. A guy points one direction and my guy points another and the guy shakes his head and points back the other way. My guy comes and says we're on the right road. Just go down the way we're going, there'll be a big curve and Carteret Rd. Turn left.

I pull out and head that way. As we go through the light I say how far down did he say it was?

I didn't ask him that, bossman. Sorry.

What was the name of the road we're looking for?

Carveret......Carmaret......it's up here on the left, he says.

10 miles later, no Dell Labs, no Carteret Rd., no Carmaret Rd..... nothing that looked like what we needed. I told him it wasn't in front of us and I turned around and headed back the way we came.

There must've been something in the way I was shifting gears and not talking, because he said Don't get mad at me, Rev. Sorry I ain't more help. I told him I wasn't mad, because I really wasn't. I was worried he wouldn't get there on time and I'd feel bad about that and that's what I told him.

We went back and got directions at the convenience store across the street from the first one we stopped at, because I didn't want the first one to think I was a moron (even though I am).

Again, he goes in, asks how to get there (told you), comes out and says Man, guess what? It's the other way on this road. We passed the road on the way in. We should've turned at Paul's Place

So I say what road do we turn on?

Carver Yacht Rd.

Carver Yacht Rd?

Yep. Turn on Carver Yacht and go to the end.



QUICK SUMMARY:

I only know two things about Rocky Point.

1. Paul's Place

2. Where Carver Yacht Rd. is



30 miles and 45 minutes after we pass it, we come back and I finally drop him off for his orientation at 6:55.



It's daylight now and as I drive back into school, I'm trying to process everything that has gone on. The lessons and similarities you could make about everything that morning to the Christian experience and walk are pretty obvious, but, I'm left with questions more than I am anything else.

What if he asks me for a ride next week?
What if he asks me for a ride tomorrow?
How many times can I be counted on to love my neighbor before I get tired of it and stop doing it?
How long before the walk turns back into just talk?
Am I just a one-shot nice guy?

?

Here's why I didn't post last Tuesday........

I am so screwed when I don't write this on Tuesdays after we're done feeding. I usually do it between 10:00 and 12:00 (now that The Shield is over, I got nothing else going on then) when everything is still fresh in my mind. If I deviate and put it off for some reason, it's tough to remember everybody, it's not as recent to me and the overall vibe of what we just did isn't there. Plus, I don't get on it right away and do it. But some times I have to put it off and this was one of those weeks. Let me tell you about the regular stuff and then I'll fill you in on what happened.



We had a diggety-dank meal. Last week I pulled out the 6 turkeys we had in the freezer to thaw and Twig put them on the grill that afternoon. By 6:00, we had 'em ready to be pulled apart by the kids for open face turkey sandwiches.

*DIGRESSION ALERT*

Turkey skin. I think I'm on record as to how much I love eating the skin of a turkey that has just been cooked. Fried, baked, grilled....I don't care if you cooked in a prison cell with a propane torch, I'd pull the skin off and eat it. I don't know if my sister realizes this, but the biggest reason I offer to carve the turkey every Thanksgiving is so I can eat the skin while I do it. Poems need to written about it, songs sung for it and monuments erected to it. The day I can get just Turkey skin at the Kane and Wheelchair (K&W Cafeteria) would be one best days of my life. You know why you never see skin on the turkey when you order it in a restaurant? 'Cause the guys that cooked it in the back already pulled it off and ate it!



Now that I got that out of my system..........



Ill try to list everyone there. Here goes

Zack Cameron Demeterius Veronica Ellen Alexis Nellie Maggie Cameron Dallas Hampton Teresa Twig John J.Boggs Ryan Laura Creeeeeech! Alexandra Blake



I probably forgot a few. My bad.

We served the turkey open faced on 2 slices of bread with gravy, alongside mashed potatoes and green beans. It was a great meal. It was pretty funny to watch some of them pulling meat off the turkey carcass. I don't know if they'd ever made the association that turkey meat was once on a live bird and it has to be dead before it shows up at Subway.

FYI: 6 turkeys will give you about 7 gallons of meat, not to mention enough turkey skin goodness to make your vision close in and your neck swell up.

There were 40 people in line before we could get the tables set up. We turned and burned on the meals until just about all the meat was gone. We had about 2 good handfuls left.

It was about 9:05 when the guy said he needed to talk to me ....bad. I told him okay, eat your plate and come find me.

He found me. Here's the conversation that took place:

HIM: Rev, I need help.

ME: Whatta you need?

HIM: I don't need no money! I need help, do you hear, me?

ME: OK. What do you need?

HIM: Lookee here, boss man...I need a ride!

ME: A ride? Where to?

HIM: I start a job tomorrow. I got to get off the street, you hear what I'm saying? But I ain't got no way to get there tomorrow. If I get there I can find people from this way and get back and forth, but I ain't got no ride tomorrow.

ME: 5-6 seconds of silence

HIM: Can you help me?

ME: What time do you have to be there?

HIM: 7:00 a.m.

ME: Where?

(ready for this?)

HIM: Rocky Point!

And I have one of those moments where 5 seconds pass but I do 10 minutes worth of thinking in my head. Boiled down it went like this:

7:00 in Rocky Point!?!? I don't want to do that. I could but I don't want to. 7 means leaving at 6 and that means me getting up at 5. Plus I'd have to go to bed early and that means to no blog-time.

And driving to Rocky Point?

No fun.

I could do it, there's nothing actually stopping me, outside of the whole 7 o'clock-6 o'clock-5 o'clock Rocky Point thing.

But if I don't who will. It's already going on 9:30. And don't flatter yourself Gary, but you probably weren't his first choice, just his last resort. And I'd do it for Don or Greg and nearly anybody else at church, so why not him? Especially, why not him? The others could probably be able to return the favor one day. I doubt he would. Jesus spent a parable on that. Don't invite the rich and famous to your banquet because they can and might return the favor. Invite the ones who can't do anything for you and God will reward when his Kingdom comes.

But 7 means 6 and 6 means 5......

(over and over and over) Finally:

ME: OK. Where you gonna be at 6:00?

HIM: Right here. I'll be right here at 6:00. Thanks, bossman. Thanks.

And that's that part of the story. I'll try to post tomorrow and tell you about actually taking him there, because that's a whole 'nother story altogether.

g

It's coming....

...just delayed. Tell you why soon.

......Who knows what it'll be by 4:30 next week?

Good thing I'm flexible.

The plan was to fix breakfast tonight- pancakes, sausage and cheese grits.
I got to the church about 4 to check on sausage and saw 7 pans of food in our fridge that weren't there yesterday. 2 pans of chicken, 2 pans of potatoes and carrots(or as I call it "going one for two") 1 pan of corned beef, 1 pan of cabbage(gag gag gag gag hack!) and a pan of sweet potatoes. Well, that was enough for the 1st stop!
John Liverman had Rotary Club today and it was catered by MOI. He hung around to see what was left and he got it and dropped it off. How great is that?! Corned beef and cabbage on St. Patrick's Day!

Then, after I went and picked up the truck, hit Sam's, and came back downtown, Donna Livingstone caught me in the parking lot. Her Beta Club at Hanover had organized a "Peanut Butter and Jelly-a-thon" to benefit some agencies and had some sandwiches left over if we wanted them. How many? 200!
Oh heck yeah! We bagged 'em 3 to a lunch bag and passed them out to folks as they left. That's always a nice feeling, because you know you've given them something for tomorrow, too.

Check it out:
PEYSON SHANE HAMPTON AUSTIN NELLIE ALEXIS ELLEN JOHN J.BOGGS RYAN LAURA BRIEN TERESA ZACH CAMERON DON VIGUS KINSEY VIGUS BRYCE VIGUS MITCH ALLEN BLAKE ALEXANDRA TWIG CREEEEECH! and me.
That's 26 people getting the jobs done tonight. And I might've missed somebody!
Pruden, Craig, Kelly, Anna, Christian, Dallas, Cameron - all regulars who were out for various reasons tonight.
That's one of the cool things about Tuesday night. I usually only have a vague idea who'll be there. You never who'll walk through the door.

Let me tell you who I am always glad to see walk through the door. Brien Campbell, Teresa Bland, and Anna Tolar. Why? Tons of reasons, not the least of which is they wash dishes and clean the kitchen like champs. Like Heavyweight Champs. Like Undisputed, Undefeated, never knocked down Heavyweight Champs.
I praise them all the time and you would too if you were me, because they make my life so much easier on Tuesday night with their servant hearts and attitudes. I've taught a lot of kids to make sweet tea, but I ain't never taught one to want to wash dishes.
Most nights when we're ready to go upstairs and get ready to serve, they're still in the kitchen cleaning pots, wiping tables and sweeping floors. This means when we finish up and come back, we don't have to do those things. Amen and Hallelujah.
Others pitch in and wash, too. Heck, catch me on a good night and i might even rinse out a pitcher or two, but week in and week out they step back, let others do the fun stuff and clean up after the rest of us. Most guys can't find one woman like that and I've got three! Hah!

Ellen Liverman is the absolute all-time best at inviting people to come with her on Tuesday nights. Nobody else is even close. I know she has invited at least 10 different friends to come over the last year and a half. And it's a rare night when she doesn't bring at least one of them. Tonight she had two! Nellie and Alexis came with her.
I always tell kids that inviting a friend to anything that exposes their friend to Jesus and his ministry is one of the best and most effective things they can do and that it pleases God immensely. More adults need to realize that, too.

Don Vigus came out tonight with his niece Kinsey and his nephew Bryce. They're on break from school back in Memphis and so they here for the week with Uncle Donald and Aunt Connie. I kept getting Bryce to his "Uncle Donald" impersonation. "WHOA-OOOOH! BUSTED! WHOA-OOH!

Some of the grits on the stove splattered on my hand tonight when I was stirring them. Don't really recommend that to anyone. Burnt like crap.

NCAA championship Monday is coming up. You know what that means.
Party at the church with the Mercy House guys!
And maybe, just maybe,...another stab at a TURDUCKEN!
We'll see. The current score is TURDUCKEN -1 GARY-0

It looks like next week we might cook some of the turkeys we have in the freezer. But that's just the plan now.......

......"Well, look what the cat drug in."

Tuesday 4:00 - No idea what we'll cook tonight. I'd thought about it all day, talked to several people about it, brainstormed a list, yet nothing grabbed me and said"COOK ME!" When I left school, I was pretty sure it was either gonna be hot dogs, pancakes or meatballs subs.



Finally, I figured we'd cook whatever we had in the freezer and that way we'd be killing two birds with one stone - cooking a meal and freeing up some room in the freezer.

Opened up the freezer and a package of something started to fall out. Caught it, flipped it over, BOOM -Chicken Thighs.

Well, there you go. Let's cook chicken.



Pulled out just about all the chicken we had and thawed it out. A quick Sam's run and we were in business.

BAKED CHICKEN (WITH MONTREAL SEASONING AND TEXAS PETE)

MASHED POTATOES

GREEN BEANS

DESSERT

SWEET TEA

When we make our mashed potatoes, we pour them into a 7 gallon Gatorade cooler. We pour half of the potatoes in and then toss in the cheese, sour cream and butter, then pour the rest of it in. When we get outside we stir it up right before we serve it. Muis muis delicioso!

PEYSON DALLAS CAMERON ELLEN JOHN L. J.BOGGS CHRISTIAN TERESA BRIEN PRUDEN CRAIG ALLEN HUNT KELLY BLAKE MITCH HAMPTON ALEXANDRA CREEEEECCHHHH! and me were the ones whipping it all up tonight.

Looks like we're going to try to have another NCAA Championship game party with the Mercy House guys. It has a different feel from the SUPERBOWLPARTY but is just as fun.

Time to pressure wash the tables and coolers again. Yay!

Don't have enough excitement in your life? Cook a meal for 80 with Peyson, Hampton, Dallas, and Cameron, my 7th grade Bible study guys. Wide open doesn't begin to describe it. Watching all four of them at once trying to take chicken off the pan with tongs and put it in the cooler just about Heart Attack'ed a couple of adults this week.

Kelly Ledger continues to express amazement, tinged with fear, at the # of items we can find to put Texas Pete on.

Brien came back to us this week. Her father passed away 2 Sundays ago and she has been stretched very thin the past 3 months traveling back and forth to be with him on the weekends while doing everything she needed to here in town during the week. She gave a really nice account of how his last days were spent, especially his last Saturday when all the family and grandkids were brought in. She told us how he was able to keep saying I Love You until the last of the grandkids had come in.

I told her the story of when my Mom died and her last words.

I had been out of town and just gotten back, only to get a call from my sister saying Mom had been put in the hospital that morning and was fading. Fast. Get here as soon as you can.

Don rode with me and we took off. I got to Cape Fear Valley Hospital and saw my sisters and brother real quick to see how things were and then went in to see Mom. She was going fast and could barely speak. The first thing she said when I walked was also the last words she ever spoke. She said.......

Actually wrote this last week but hit "SAVE" instead of "POST". My bad.

It was so cold last night, if you were outside, you couldn't smell anything.



We brought the folks brave enough to show up and eat with us inside. We had a great meal.

Baked Spaghetti

Salad

Garlic Bread

Desserts

Sweet Tea/HotChocolate



THE TROUBLE WITH NOODLES*

We brought the leftover noodles from the Spaghetti supper Sunday downtown to use last night. There were a lot of noodles for us to take. And they were all in several black trash bags. We got them and brought them into the kitchen in those bags. After we used all the noodles we needed for the meal last night, there were still several bags left to deal with. We managed to get most of it in 2 large buckets and the rest in freezer bags.

Now I just had to find room in the freezers.

After accomplishing that minor miracle, 20 minutes later I looked under the cart and saw 2 more trashbags of noodles. I swear they weren't there before.

Tonight would be the last night Tom Varno would be around. He was in town for the past several months rehabbing a back injury and had been cleared by the Doc to go back to Fla. and resume work. I got the book "Jesus Wants to Save Christians" by Rob Bell and had everybody sign out. We gave it to him at the end of the 1st stop. We will miss him and wish him well.

Twig was sick. Hope he gets better.

Finished late. Gotta run. Going skiing this week with Youth Group.
In Maryland.
First time for that. Let you know how Maryland is for skiing.

g

* It's an old Star Trek reference. Don't feel bad if you don't get it. gh

How cold was it?......

It was so cold last night.....
....I cut a guy off in traffic and he gave me the "mitten".

....I saw an Amish guy buying an electric blanket.

It was 22 degrees when we finished up last night.
That kind of cold keeps people away, especially at the first stop. We saw 10 folks there, and we were bringing them inside.

Prayer Need

Brien Campbell's father passed away Sunday morning.
Brien is one of our weekly faithful. In addition to everything else, she washes all the dishes we get dirty in a way that reminds you of Mother Teresa.... if she were a drill sergeant. I think a lot of the guys at Mercy House come out just to see if she's there.

Brien's father had been sick for a while. Keep Brien and her family in your prayers this week as they cope with the loss of a loved one.
g

Have to put the pancakes on hold......

I don't know what we were thinking.

Last week when we were finishing up, Twig and I were talking about things we could serve this week. Breakfast was the option we finally settled on.

But we forgot to factor in The Follies.

The Follies is the big church wide fundraiser we do for the Youth Mission Trip. It's a spaghetti supper fixed by the parents and served by the Youth Group. Then there's a program, with things ranging from songs to skits to all sorts of things in between, for entertainment. Then Don shows a slide show of the previous year's mission trip and some pictures of this year's destination. An offering is taken up to go towards the trip and help offset the cost for those going. Last year it brought in about 10,000.

All of that is to say we always reap the benefit of the extra sauce and noodles. So, forget breakfast, we're going Eye-talian this week.

It's supposed to get very cold tomorrow night so a warm plate of spaghetti might hit the spot.