HE IS RISEN!!!

The life of the community goes on.

Pearl Boyle passed away yesterday.

I was able to visit with Doris Jean and the family early yesterday afternoon, before she passed, and had some quiet time just with Pearl. I sat on the side of her bed and held her hand and prayed for her and spoke to her a little bit. She was still breathing when I left. Hazel, her sister, and HER daughter Wanda were there, as well as Benny, Doris Jean's husband, and HIS parents. There was no shortage of love and support in the house.

I left to meet Leslie at the mechanic's to pick up our van, which was getting some work done in preparation for their trip to Louisville next week (she's soloing it with all three kids - please pray for her!). After that, we came home and I went to pick up the kids from school. When WE got home, I started doing some paperwork, expense report stuff, and along about 5:30 Wanda called to tell me that they thought Pearl had just passed away. I told her I'd be right there.

When I got there, the grief was palpable. Pearl had been sick for so long, and Doris Jean had been caring for her for so long, that though I'm sure they've worked through some if not most of their grief anticipating the event, there was still a very real sense of sorrow permeating the air. There was, to be sure, a sense of relief, at not having to wonder if she was in pain or otherwise in discomfort. Her condition was one that was so frail that it made it hard for Doris Jean to be away from her for any length of time. Church on Sunday was almost the only outing she allowed herself.

Viewing will be tomorrow night from 7-8:30, and the funeral will be on Saturday ... Holy Saturday ... at 11:00.

The family of faith is gathering. Surrounding them with not only their love and presence, but their prayers and words of comfort and encouragement as well.

The life of the community goes on.

the guys were singing 'Las Mañanitas" ... it was great.  

i wish i could describe for you what happened last night. it was part concert, part play, part goofyness, and ALL magic.

the kids apparently started working on what they were going to put on for the guys after dinner after i left to go pick them up. after finishing off the pizza (the one with jalapeños-- made MOSTLY for them--) we announced that the after dinner entertainment would be downstairs. we walked down the steps to the basement to find seats lined up in a couple of rows, with programs of the night's entertainment (listing the 4 songs to be performed), and signs for the bathroom - in english AND spanish.

the first song they did was "So Good to Me" -- but in spanish. then ... well ... then they did 'Wild Thing' (what ya gonna do?) ... then ... hmmm ... not sure ... but they ended with "Jesus Loves Me" (also in spanish). the guys LOVED it.

With Hannah on guitar, caleb on drums, and judson going through all kinds of contortions and dancing in front of everyone ... lights out and a flashlight/spotlight playing over them, Leslie being the tech roadie and changing the CD's as needed ... at the end they were all giving out autographs ... it was a TOTAL hoot.

the picture with the cake was after that. :-)

grace & peace

why is it that we fear what we don't understand ... or is it just that we don' t agree?

http://www.kybaptist.org/kbc/welcome.nsf/pages/mclaren

maybe i should rephrase that ... i don't know ... it just seems counterproductive to cut off thinking because it doesn't fall into the 'orthodox' way of thinking ...

that's the whole point.

an eventful weekend.

We celebrated Caleb's birthday party Saturday with a pool party at the fitness center over in tappahannock. had fun, but it was a bit rushed. 11-2 including an hour's swim time.

Scott and Becky and Breanna and Colin came up for the day. First time visit. it was good to have them here. hopefully we'll be getting together again soon.

This past sunday was WMU (Women's Missionary Union) Missions Emphasis Sunday. Leslie and I were going to preach together, weaving together a couple of stories from our trip to Mexico with the Matthew passage on salt and light that we used on our prayer calendar. i was looking forward to standing with Leslie in the pulpit.

As usual, i was up late working on my part of the sermon, and the phone rang. it was 12:15, and it was Miguel Angel, Vianey's husband, letting us know that she was in labor. the due date was this past tuesday. Leslie took her to the clinic on Thursday, and they had called the hospital in Fredericksburg, who in turn had asked her to come up right then. Leslie took her up, but they decided not to induce THEN. they DID schedule her to come in at 5:30 on Monday morning to BE induced.

They pulled up here to the house about 12:45, and they all climbed into the minivan and headed out to Fredericksburg (a little over an hour away). Leslie called me at 2:15 to let me know they'd gotten there. i was almost done with the sermon by then. so much for the tandem preaching experience. :-/

Leslie called again shortly after 8 to say that they were still waiting, and that things were going slowly.

She called again just as the prelude was beginning to let us know that Miguel Angel (son) was born at 10:44, 7 Lbs, 13 oz, 20.5 inches long. mother and child doing fine.

Sunday evening we were slated to show some of our pictures for Family Night, and tell the rest of the story from our trip.

Leslie pulled in around 3, went straight to bed, and slept for a little over an hour, then got up, showered, and got ready for the evening. We'd set it as 'Chili night', and had 5 different 'versions' of Chili to choose from. had a good turnout, including Micky and Rick Vetra, their grandson, and Nancy Foster, as well as Vince and Barbara Gunn, all from Thalia Lynn, our church in Virginia Beach. It was great to see all of them.

Leslie pretty much did the presentation by herself. i had a few comments here and there, but since she'd already gone through the presentation when she spoke at Corrottoman on the evening of the 6th, she had a better idea of what to say and when.

She came straight home afterwards and went straight to bed. I'd gotten a call from Riverside Tappahannock hospital to translate for a woman who'd taken her daughter into the ER earlier that evening, and as i was getting ready to head on to bed, about 11:30, i got a call from the triage nurse. another family had just come in with their 9 month old son. the situation was complicated by the fact that he was born with a chromosomal issue, and he had a feeding tube inserted (nasogastric). i helped with what i could over the phone, and we ended the call, but a few minutes later, about midnight, another call came in. Dianne, one of the other nurses, asked if i could come in, since the situation was a little more complicated than would normally be the case. i had not changed out of my clothes, realizing that i probably needed to head over anyway. the call of course confirmed it. got over there shortly after midnight, and helped with the translation as needed. the ER gave the boy (william) a couple of breathing treatments and he was able to breath easier, and settled down and finally went to sleep. then they had to take a couple of chest X-rays. woke him up of course. but again he settled down.

ended up getting back home about 3:20, and to bed around 4.

got up to take Jose to his physical therapy appointment at 8 in tappahannock, then back to work. came home, and climbed into bed and slept. Leslie had not completely recovered from Sunday morning/afternoon, so she went back to bed as well. we ended up sleeping until 2PM. like she said when we were settling in "we're GETTING OLD."

yeah, we are.

just glad we're doing it together.

She's in Fredericksburg now, picking up Vianey and Miguel Angel and Miguelito to bring them back. I'm waiting for her to call to let me know she's on her way back so I can head out to Richmond to purchase a bus ticket for one of the guys in White Stone to leave on the 15th of March.

Such is the life. :-)

Grace, and Peace.

Mundo and Carmen Perez, their daughter Berenice, and their sons Fernando and Emmanuel. incredibly gracious hosts. sweet sweet people! we stayed with them from our arrival on thursday until Tuesday morning, when he and his father in law drove us into the state of Mexico, to the city/town of Chimalhuacan, where we stayed with Isidra and Norberto Manzano until the following Thursday morning. 

the sign says 'today's fresh chicken' ... and how! it was good to see the old carnicerias again --  

so here we are doing the pose in front of the fountain near the ... legislative palace in Tlaxcala, Tlaxcala, Mexico. more pictures to come ...  

gee... it's a rodeo ... at the hacienda next to our friend Valentin's house ... but for the life of me i can't remember the name of the town it's near ... this is the merging of three different pictures ... which i though was kinda cool.  

this was a few days ago ... that's my winter coat on my chin ... :-)  

the sanctuary of Jerusalem Church, looking all pink and beautiful!  

the view from our front yard on friday evening. pretty awesome!  

today was a good day. got the message done shortly after 1 AM, which is actually EARLY for me. came back in the morning and had to add a few finishing touches to it. interesting thing, in sitting down and reading through it again, there were parts that i didn't remember writing. hmmm ...

anyway, the message is on the emmerton messages blog linked to the right here, if you want to read it. there were a few variations from the manuscript, but not many. Leslie thought it was good. that's always a good sign. i thought when i first started doing this that she would be the person i'd go to to sound off ideas, or read parts of the messages TO to find out if they 'clicked' or not.

turns out we don't do that so much. it is a part of her worship to NOT be a part of the sermon preparation. and it turns out that it's part of my discipline of ... listening ... i guess, to not bounce ideas off people when i'm preparing a sermon. i chat online with jay or a couple of my other friends while i SHOULD be writing the sermon, but aside from a few general ideas ... or a couple of pure copying instances (thanks, jay:-)) most of what ends up coming from the pulpit is what comes together between me and God over the course of the week or couple of days while the text is "perking."

anyway ... the morning went well. after church, i ran the kids to McD's for lunch, then we all went to Farnham Manor, one of the local nursing homes, for our monthly service and devotional. Mrs Ruth Richardson, who was the oldest living WWI veteran, lived there until she passed away on the 29th of December. She was a precious soul. clear eyes, alert, not ... disoriented in any way that i could tell. she was always at the services.

i missed her today.

This evening we had our usual 'family night' supper and missions 'moment'. the program tonight was US - leslie and me- sharing what a little about mexico and what we hope to do while we're there. we're looking to build relationships with the families of the men we've gotten to know in working with the hispanic community on the northern neck.

at the end the congregation commissioned us.

pretty cool, this being a church family and all.

REALLY cool.

grace & peace

just a quick note. drove to va beach yesterday to celebrate colin's birthday this morning, and had a wonderful time at chuck e cheese's. noise and all.

christmas in the orthodox tradition was just celebrated on ... thursday, otherwise known as the feast of the epiphany. nice tie-in, with the wise men bringing gifts to the holy family.

gotta go write.

grace & peace

4 Generations: Nana (Turner), Grana (Angela Turner Maccubbin). Leslie (Maccubbin) Park and Hannah (Park). Nana is 96!

Caleb's memento from vacation. after 3 days of being housebound due to the snow (they couldn't go out because we didn't think they'd NEED snow gear ... after all, this was VIRGINIA BEACH... (sigh) ... we were out at the local playground flying his remote control plane, and i was in charge of recharging it. while i was doing that, he ran off to play on the playground, and promptly slammed into a horizontal pole and cut his eyebrow open. he looks like a boxer, doesn't he? he has 2 internal and 6 external stiches to brag about to his friends at school tomorrow. :-)  

Scott made this for Angela a few years back. Grandy has a rice-filled satin rose stem stuck in his mouth like a pipe. He passed away in April of 99. We STILL miss him terribly. 

well, we're on vacation ... and i feel disconnected. i guess in a way that's the whole POINT of going on vacation - TO disconnect. to disengage from the stuff of everyday life and relax ... refresh yourself, as it were.

what makes it odd is that, i don't really WANT to disconnect. i don't WANT to disengage from the lives that i'm involved with back home. i wonder how Cindy is doing, how William is spending his first christmas without Margaret in ... probably over 60 years, how Jack is feeling, how Jose did in his therapy yesterday and this morning, how Karen is doing - still fairly stunned at the gifts she brought over on Friday afternoon ... STILL AMAZED at the generosity of the folks at Jerusalem ...

of course, a part of me is perking the message for sunday ...

we had a wonderful sunday - went to thalia lynn, saw a lot of people we'd not seen in a long time, though not everyone - it snowed here, something fairly unusual in virginia beach - we still have an inch or two on the ground, though thankfully the roads have mostly been cleared. Hannah's 1st grade teacher came by to visit this afternoon - Louise Powell has the gift of encouragement. she is such a sweet spirit. Leslie went to breakfast with Julie, her best friend, and has left a phone tag message for donna, hopefully we'll be able to hook up later in the week.

all in all, i suppose i'll be settling into vacationing more and more as the week progresses, in time to get back into the swing of things when we get back to emmerton sometime saturday.

i'm still trying to wrap my brain around the horrible events in indonesia, malaysia, sri lanka, thailand (i had nightmares about that happening as a boy in antofagasta), and ... somalia???

O God, give us hearts and hands to reach out and lift up, and help, and provide comfort and sustenance to our brothers and sisters across the world.