...I only have to do it about once every 2 or 3 years.

Feels like the first time in a long time that I've actually sat down on a Tuesday night to write about it.

I keep saying how we make plans on what we're going to cook, only to find that we might not have as much say in it as we think. It's true. Me and Twig'll make a plan, now. But running the plan ain't always the plan, if you catch my drift.
The plan was meatloaf. I was going to go down after church and get the ground beef out of the freezer and put in the fridge to thaw.
Except I got sidetracked after Sunday School and left to go play my tennis match without doing it. No problem. I figured I'd run down after youth group and take care of it.
However, a couple of people told me that there had been food left over from the dance at the Act. Ctr. on Saturday night and they'd put in the fridge for us.
Okay.
We can supplement what we planned with that.
But then I go down to the church after youth group. I open the fridge to make room for the ground beef to thaw.....and there's 7 big aluminum pans of food crammed in there. Turkey and gravy, roastbeef and gravy, squash casserole, greenbeans, stuffing, sweet potatoes, and peach cobbler. No note, no calls about it, nothing,. Just put in the fridge for us.
At least, nowadays I assume it's for us. So I didn't thaw the ground beef like I planned.

And guess what?
The food from the dance was just enough for the first stop.
And guess what else?
The mystery donor food was just enough for the 2nd stop.

That tends to put me in my place when it comes to my plans and what I'm gonna do.
It's very humbling, too, because it's not just every now and then that stuff like that happens. Every week you can see where God makes it known that He's there and He's in the things that are going on.

Especially when I get my plans out of the way and let Him.

Tonight was a good night. The weather, the food, the volunteers, our friends that came and ate,..it was just good.
1st stop:
Ham and Cheese sandwiches
Roast Beef and Cheese sandwiches
Deviled eggs (more on those later)
Greek Potatoes
Peach Cobbler
Sweet Tea

2nd Stop
Turkey and gravy
Roast beef and gravy
Squash casserole
Sweet Potatoes
Dreassing
Green beans
Assorted desserts
Sweet Tea

BRIEN TERESA TWIG PRUDEN STEVE BLAKE ERICA MORGAN
ELAINE SAVANNA MAGGIE MERRITT MATTIE CRAIG PEYSON J.BOGGS RYAN and me were the ones holding down the fort this week.

OFFICIAL PUBLIC APOLOGY
Last week every one kinda shouted Anna down about the new Miss USA being on last year's mission trip to Guatamela. Anna said she didn't remember her being on it, maybe she was on the year before. Everybody was all "No.No.No. She was on last year's. I remember blah blah blah......:"
Well, I looked on the picture on the wall in the Activity Center and it was 2 years ago and not last year. Anna was right and everyone else was wrong! Way to hold your ground, Anna.



Even though it happens alot, I'm still amazed the way people find their way to us. I was sitting in the kitchen about 5:40 today, reading Crazy Love by Francis Chan, just waiting for people to start arriving and a woman walks in and says "Hey, I'm Erica and I'm here to volunteer."

Never seen her before in my life, had no clue who she might be, so I said "Good. My name's Gary. Have we talked on the phone?"

She said no, and starts to tell me how she got to us. She's a contract nurse, here between jobs, volunteering around town, a couple of people she helped at the Tileston Clinic told her about us, she came by the church and BOOM!... here she was. Rides a BMW motorcycle, travels a lot, been to some of the same places in Guatemala around the same time we had, originally from Arkansas. Friendly as the day is long and fit in like she'd been coming for years.

And she finds us. Not because we went recruiting or because we advertised for help.
As far as the public apology to Anna, no sweat. I have no problem admitting when I'm wrong. After all.......

...might not be joking next time. I can see it happening.

This past Tuesday was great.
ELLEN J.BOGGS MAGGIE CHRISTIAN MITCH ANNA TWIG ZACH CAMERON RYAN CREEEEEEECH! ALEXANDRA BLAKE and me put it together.
What we put together was
VENISON STEW OVER RICE
ROLLS
DESSERT (featuring homemade Peach Cobbler)
The best SWEET TEA on the street!

We took the deer meat and cubed it up. Put it in with carrots, potatoes, and a nice thick gravy/broth....good stuff.

Here's a the recipe for how we do Peach Cobbler:
2 boxes of Jiffy Yellow Cake Mix
2 cans of peaches
2 sticks of butter
1 bottle Texas Pete (just kidding)

Pour the peaches into a halfsize disposable aluminum pan so they cover the bottom evenly. Save about half the juice for later. Pour both boxes over the peaches, covering evenly. Cut up the sticks of butter into about 16 pieces total and place on top evenly. Pour remaining peach over all of it. Bake at 350 for about 20 minutes.

It' really good warm but cold works good, too. That recipe, by the way, is all Twig's. He makes a mean one.

The group that we are seeing now has changed almost 60 % from who we used to see. By that I mean, we are probably seeing the same amount as last year, but only 40 % of them are the same people. The Mercy House has a little more continuity than the 1st stop, but it seems to add more new folks without losing folks. Might sound strange, but if you're there week to week you'd understand.

As far as the Texas pete joke.......

Oh Deer.

How about a little Venison beef stew and rice for supper?

That's what Willis was talking about!



That should be a nice change of pace from the usual menu of things we do. Twig's got 2 big deer hams, so we're gonna cube it up,brown it up, gravy it up and rice it up.

Then eat it up.



By the way, the long national nightmare is over. I have, after much hand wringing and analysis paralysis, gotten a new cell phone. I'm almost embarassed to tell you how much thought and effort I actually put into this, because it's ridiculous. After rocking the same old piece of junk camera phone for ages(5+yrs?) , I stepped up and got a really nice Blackberry Curve. But the route I took to get it is one for the books.
And maybe for a post later this week.

......The Great Bus Breakdown of Surf Trip 2009

Surf Trip 2009 was great this year. We left on the Monday of spring break and came back on Good Friday. We did this last year,too. The weather starting out was much better this year. Last year we drove all the way down in serious rain. This year was sunny and clear but the wind was rough. It was pushing the bus around the whole time.


There were 11 youth and 4 adults. Me, Robert Boggs, London Paulson, and Zach Reynolds were the chaperones who sacrificed a week and went to sunny, beautiful Florida. The purpose is to go down and let kids surf and fish as much as possible for three days. We go to Sebastian Inlet State Recreation Area, which is very nice. The surf is good there and they have a several places to fish along the jetty, including a long pier. It works out great for us because we get there and unload everybody to let them do their things and at lunchtime I go to their picnic area, throw some charcoal in one of their grills and get lunch going. They come in for a break, grab a hot dog or a burger and head back out for the afternoon. We stay as long as they want and then go back to the motel and get cleaned up for supper. We always ate where there were a couple of options and then let them have free time until they go to bed. Playing cards worked for some of us every night.


There's something about the 2nd day of this trip. Last year that's when the "worst storm in 30 years" blew through our campsite and took down 2 of the tents and make lakes in the others. This year, the bus broke down on the 2nd day.


We were coming back from Sebastian and had stopped at a surf shop to get some stuff to repair some boards. As we started back, the bus cut off in the middle of the road. Tried to start it. It started but then cut off. Two lights lit up on the dash-CHECK ENGINE in yellow and STOP ENGINE in red. Crap. Not good. Hit the flashers. Got out and went towards the back of the bus and saw it before I took 2 steps. Water. Green water running out from under the bus. Lots of it.


A policeman pulls up and gets behind us with his lights on. I open the door to the engine compartment. We can smell it, but can't see the cause.
(I'll tell this very compactly, but it didn't resolve that neatly. Just know there was lots of long silences, stretches where we had no idea what to do).


The bus has an override that won't allow the bus to be started when the re's low or no water in it. That keeps you from burning up the engine. It's why the STOP ENGINE light came on and why it cut off and wouldn't start.


Priority 1 is to get the bus off the road. We are on the main drag coming off the beach in the inside lane at 5:30 in the afternoon. People behind us are hating life. Zach and a couple of kids go to the 7-11 on the corner and buy 5 gallons of water. We're going to pour it in and see if we can "fool" the system long enough to pull it off the road. I get in and they start pouring. I plan on going up to the next block and take a right and putting in on the side of the road where it's fairly open and deserted. I start it up and Zach comes up and yells the policeman said just pull in the parking lot on my right. The small, tight parking lot on my right. I turn it, nose it and cut it off.


Priorities 2A and 2B are to figure out how we'll get it fixed and how to get the kids back to the hotel. I put Zach in charge of trying to get a taxi for the kids. Meanwhile, the other adults are on the phone trying to line up a tow truck and mechanic.

A fire truck comes by and does the Haz-Mat thing to the anti-freeze we've been leaking. We ask him who they call when their fire trucks need towing. He mentioned someone and said he would call them for us if we wanted. We wanted.



Zach finally get a taxi company to commit to coming with a van to get the guys. About 5 minutes after that a woman in a minivan pulls up and starts asking the cop why he's giving a church bus a ticket. He explains he's not and he's just helping us. She comes over and introduces herself. Her name is Jeannie and she works at a church nearby and was going home and saw us. She asked if she could help us and we told her we were trying to get the kids to the motel and the bus to a mechanic. She volunteered to drive the guys back and told us to cancel the taxi. Very nice. She called her friend Bertha and between the 2 of them they drove all our guys back, saving us a big and unexpected taxi cost. She also gave me her number and told me to call her if I needed a ride back from wherever we took the bus! Which was the $64,000 question- who was going to fix the bus?



The tow truck showed up. The big honkin' tow truck showed up. The guy that got out was about as big as the truck. We told him what the deal was and I asked him if knew where we could get something that big fixed. He said there was a guy in Palm Bay who he took stuff like ours to, and he did good work and could probably help us out. I said fine, take us there.



But first we had to move the bus again. I had pulled in straight as far as I could. The tow truck could not get to the front to lift it up. So I had to back it out into traffic and put it alongside the curb so he could do what he needed to. It had cooled down enough by this point so I figured I had about a minute before it would heat up enough to shut it down.

No pressure. One minute to back it up onto the street again and parallel it to the curb with all the traffic stopped watching me.

No pressure at all.



Well, I managed to get it done, he hooked it up and off we went. "We" were Robert Boggs and myself. The guy said Palm Bay was only 5 miles away. Which was good in terms of time, but I knew wouldn't help in the cost. Once they pick it up, it's the same fee regardless, 99% of the time.

I asked him if anyone would be at the garage I could talk to and he said no because it was after 6 and he closed at 5. But I could drop it off and come back early in the morning and talk to him and he'd probably get to us right away. A few moments later we pulled up and the fence going to the back was still open. Two guys came out and waved us back! We pulled in and got out. The older of the 2 men said we were lucky, that usually he's long gone but an insurance adjustor had stayed late and just left. I told him our situation. He asked me what time I had to be on the road in the morning. I told him I wasn't getting out of town,but I had kids to drive back and forth surfing. He opened it up and took a panel off so he could see into the engine. We had a busted water pipe about as long as my hand.He said he could take care of it but I'd have to come by in the morning and "take care" of him. Which meant he'd been burnt before by out of town groups getting repairs and splitting before paying. I told him if he was going fix it tonight I'd stay and "take care" of him right then. He said "Deal" and 40 minutes later we were settling the bill. He gave me a number and said is that all right and I told hm I was happy as a clam. His bill was less than the tow truck's. He even made a heat shield for the new section of pipe, because it was close to the exhaust pipe. Between him and the tow truck guy, they couldn't have been nicer or more helpful.Bus repaired and filled with water and antifreeze, we drove out of his lot right at 8:00.

Driving back to the motel, Robert and I started putting together all the ways God took care of us each step of the way. I mean, when that piece of hose broke, we had nothing. No idea who to call, no mechanic, nothing.
But God sends us a super nice policeman, and firemen who know a towing service and are willing to call them for us. If I'd pulled in the first place I'd planned, Jeannie wouldn't have seen us and offered to help. We get a tow truck driver who knows a place and the place is still open an hour after regular hours. The owner goes out of his way to fix us and get us out of there so our trip is not interrupted or delayed a bit.
Too many things fell into place for it to be random or coincidental. It was God. Watching over us. Taking care of us. And not with the overtly miraculous (the bus didn't heal itself), but with people and situations God put in place before we came along. At one point the tow driver said it was just luck of the draw that he was the one we got. I told him I thought it was God's doing and he was a blessing to us.

Anyway, we got back and nearly everyone else had eaten, so we parked the bus and walked next door to the IHOP. We were starving. Under other conditions, not my first choice, but it looked pretty good right then.

And that is the story of ......

Still catching up from being gone all last week...

.....so don't expect much right now.
Surf Trip '09 was great. Had a little bus breakdown excitment.
Tonight went good. It was nice to be back. Had a ton of help, which is great.
I'll do this while it's fresh
EDWIN. JANE. TWIG. BRIEN. ANNA . MITCH. MANDY. CAMERON . ZACH. DEMETRIUS. GIRL FROM GREENSBORO. PEYSON. AUSTIN. SHANE. HAMPTON. SHANE'S FRIEND. ELAINE. KILLER. JOHANNA . MATTIE. MAGGIE. MERRITT. BLAKE. J.BOGGS. CHRISTIAN. LAURA. me
The best news I got tonight was that my friend that I gave a ride to Rocky Point is still working there! Yay! (Actually, even better news was he has a steady ride to and from there every day.)

Gotta run. tell you all about the cool things God did to get the bus in Fla. fixed later this week.
And if you want to hear some serious whining and wishy washy-ness, I'll tell you about my circuitous route to a new phone. Maybe.

PEACE OUT!