Unity Creates Strength

As I ponder answers I don't have to questions that are too big for me, I run into what Stephanie and Noah Joyner call the Haitian Contradiction.  I have found yet one more contradiction.  I was reading Steph Joyner's blog (nothing2bring.blogspot.com) about the recent cholera outbreak, and I decided to check out what wiki had to say about Haiti.  There were lots of great facts about Haiti and its history, but one thing really stood out to me, and that was Haiti's national motto - Unity Creates Strength.

There are so many things that we take for granted - clean drinking water, indoor plumbing, roofs that don't leak, soft beds with more than an abundance of blankets and pillows.  Yes we have a lot.  But there are so many who have so little.  It's like I hear their cries from across a vast ocean, but don't know exactly from which direction they cry out.  Then God pinpoints exactly where some of the cries are poured out - a land known as Haiti.  A land who has so little.  A land who hungers, not for food that perishes, but food that is eternal.  The unity that is found between God and man is the greatest way to bring strength to the weak, help to the helpless, hope to the hopeless.  What if we brought clean water to Haiti in the name of the Creator who can supply living water?

In the USA, we learned that we found our strength in uniting with one another despite our differences.  The gospel is the same.  How different, how sinful, and how human we are compared to the One, True God of the universe.  Yet he desires that we be one with him in Christ.  I don't care how many states unite, they are absolutely powerless compared to uniting with the God and Creator of all reality.

That is the irony of the Haitian national motto - Unity Creates Strength.  When will we answer their cries...their pleas for help?  When will we take the gospel to the desperate who are dying because they do not possess clean drinking water.  We water our flowers with clean drinking water, yet their babies die every day.  And what hope can there be apart from living water that gives them life everlasting?  Oh the pain of death apart from Christ!!  Unity creates strength, and unity with Christ produces eternal life!

Oh to See the Sea!

We spent the weekend with family at Myrtle Beach after going to the Coastal football game Saturday night.  I couldn't believe how warm it was.  The kids loved the beach!  They were all really brave this year!  Especially Abigail.  Micah and Nate had a blast, too.  We stayed in a great hotel right on the beach called the Sandcastle.  It definitely marks a first for me.  I've never slept in a sandcastle before this weekend.  You couldn't beat the rate, though.  Thanks to Orbitz, we got the place for like $25 a night.  We would have stayed longer, but had Dr.'s appointments and loose ends.  Besides, the last thing we need to do right now is spend money we don't have on lavish vacations.  It was a great little trip, though.  I think my favorite part was sleeping on the big bed in Maw Maw and Paw Paw's room.  Their room had a huge picture window that went from floor to ceiling.  I felt like a kid because I would crash on that big bed and just lay there and watch the ocean.

The best part about the Sandcastle hotel was definitely the various pools.  There was a traditional pool, but just next to it was what they called an endless river.  It was basically a tiny river with rafts floating around it.  It was neat!  There were a lot of hotels with these lazy rivers.  I can see why they're popular, though.  It was nice to float around lazily with the kids.  I literally could have floated there for hours.  Besides the endless river, there was a little kiddie pool that was perfect for the youngins.  And then there was a heated indoor pool that felt great!  Just next to that was a huge hot-tub.  So, there were a lot of pools!

The hotel where my Aunt and Grandparents stayed was called the Schooner II.  It was a Racquetball and Pool club.  While the pool was a bit small and kind of green, the racquetball court and fitness center was really cool!  It was all on the 15th floor so it was pretty high up.  Ashley beat me in ping pong, but I beat her in racquetball.  I didn't feel too good about my victory, though since she is about 8 months pregnant.  Although, that didn't stop her in ping pong.

Just before we left we toured the new athletic facility at Ben's school.  The best part of all was hanging out in the football team's locker room.  That was awesome!  Coach Bennett was there, too.  Check out the pics!

 This was our last hoorah before the baby comes.  It was great!  Can't wait for the little bambino to join us for more adventures in the years to come!

Coastal 28, Stony Brook 38

While it certainly wasn't their best game ever, Coastal had some real positive points where they almost rallied to tie the game.  I have to say their punter (who also happens to be my brother) played a fantastic game!  Ben had a play that really changed the momentum of the game.  It looked like it was going to be an all-out shut-out.  I mean, people were leaving in the middle of the first quarter!  It was that bad!  Well, in the third quarter, Ben was about to punt when he had to run the ball.  He didn't have time to get the punt off so he ran for it.  Sure enough he got a first down!  We were back in the game!  I told Ben after the game that he had no reason at all to hang his head.  He did a great job of doing his job exactly when and how the team needed it.  I'm proud of you, Ben!

This game marks the end of a chapter for our lives as it is the last Coastal football game we will be able to attend while Ben plays college ball.  He is now a senior and has only four more games left in the season.  We can't make it to another game because we have a baby coming soon, and can't be too far from home.  We don't know exactly what will happen after Ben is done with college ball.  He will most definitely continue to go as far as he can.  He has so much potential!  It has been great to be a part of CCU football, and only wish I could have made it to more games.

From Durkyn to Stackhurst

I'm not sure exactly why we find ourselves living on streets with such unusual names.  Nonetheless, we have gone through a significant change in our life as a family.  We have moved out of our home on Durkyn Place and into a new home.  The Durkyn house was on the market, but was not selling (not too surprising).  At the same time we found some great deals out there and decided that now was the time to buy for sure.  Interest rates are at all time lows, and list prices are dropping dramatically.  So, we decided on a cute house just north of Durkyn in Youngsville, NC.  Technically we still have a Wake Forest address, so I'm not quite sure how to tell people where we live.  The next street over is Wake County, while we are in Franklin County.  Which wouldn't be so bad except the Wake Co. folks are paying only a fraction of the taxes we now pay in Franklin Co. (which would have been nice to know prior to purchasing in Franklin Co.).  But still, the instant equity we have in the house made the purchase and move worth it.

What happened to Durkyn, you ask?  It is still there, but it is currently occupied by a tenant who is renting from us for a 6 month lease.  This frees us up to not have to carry two mortgages. The tenant is a very nice little family and we are certainly glad to have them in the house.

While we greatly miss our neighbors on Durkyn, we have come to really enjoy this new spot.  The neighbors are very friendly here as well.  The new house is quite spacious, too, making life a little easier on Ashley and the kids for sure (and for me, too!)  The yard is nice and flat and there are NO trees!  Which at first I thought was a bummer, but in all honesty, I really like the idea of not having to rake this fall!  We do have some small trees, but not enough to really have to rake.  Also, because there are no trees, there is no canopy and the sky is huge!!!  When the stars are out, you can almost see 180 degrees of starry sky!  It's great!  We are also on the flight path for air traffic into and out of RDU airport.  We love watching the planes fly overhead.  The boys especially like them!

The move was long and tedious.  The driveway at Durkyn was too steep to get the truck down.  It kept bottoming-out.  We finally just had to park it on the curb and carry every last piece of furniture, every box, and every little thing up the drive and into the truck (about a 20-30 yard hike).  Needless to say that made the day extra long.

At Stackhurst, we parked the truck right up to the house on our nice, flat driveway!  Our plans are still to sell Durkyn and cash in on that investment.  We are so glad to still keep in touch with the folks from that neighborhood, although, we would like to spend more time with them.  It's not quite the same that's for sure.  We have met neighbors here and are enjoying our relationships with them.  Neighbor Paul has great tips for the house, and we have some great conversations.  Neighbor Kamira and her puppy, Pepper like playing in the front yard, so we always like it when they visit.  The kids really like Pepper, and I think she likes them just as much.  Abigail has made some new friends whose backyard backs up to ours.  They'll often come up to the property line and stand there to see if Abigail and Nate can come out and play.


I'm not sure exactly what God's plans are for us and how long we'll be in this neighborhood.  While we are here, though, there are really two investments will make. One being investing in our kids and the time we spend with them.  And the other being meeting more neighbors and making more friends.  Those investments are sure to produce a return, regardless of the state of the economy.

Food (or boxes) Sacrificed to Idols

I went into an ABC store for the first time in my life today.  I felt like some kind of rebel.  Of course, I was on a mission quite different from the other patrons.  I had no intentions of getting filled up on alcohol.  Instead, I was in search of good, sturdy boxes to fill up with my stuff.  And sure enough, there were plenty of those kind of boxes at the local liquor store.  It was actually a pretty clean operation.  Yes, those who made their purchases walked out with brown bags.  I was cool with that. Me...I just walked out with brown boxes (and blue ones, and yellow ones...well they are kind of pretty aren't they?).

Ready for some FOOTBALL!

Some of you may already know my little brother plays college football.  For the rest of you, my little brother plays football at Coastal Carolina, and is an awesome punter!  This season opens up against the WVU Mountaineers.  The ironic thing is Ashley's family is not really into sports that much.  But if the sport involves WVU, they are all about it!  They're huge WVU fans.  This should make for an interesting interaction.  Ben, being a punter, should get some good playing time in that game.  This is his senior year, and we are all very excited for him!  GO BEN!

Brian Carderelli

Just got word on Monday before I went to work that an acquaintance of mine was killed in Afghanistan.  He was travelling to Kabul with a team of doctors when their party was overtaken by Taliban militia.  They pulled the team into the woods and shot them one by one.  You can read Brian's story in the Washington Post here,

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/09/AR2010080905727.html

Brian was a junior counselor of mine for a couple of summers at Grace Bible Camp in Goshen, VA.  He along with Michael Albert and Josh White, were some of my best JCs.  Brian was a very hard worker.  Quiet at times, but always willing to spend time with the boys and help out however was needed.  I am so proud to hear of how he spent his days after graduating from college.  I regret that we lost touch after those summers, but am so proud to hear of how he invested his life.  I am challenged by Brian's willingness to love on people regardless of the cost.

Dinner Table Discussion at Our House

Let me give you some kind of idea what sort of discussions take place at our dinner table....

Abigail: "When I get married I'm going to be a mommy and not have any kids."

Nate:  "When I grow up I'm going to be a fork."

Micah: growl

Ashley: "Is it bedtime yet?"  "When I grow up I'm going to be a full time vacationer."

Our Adventure with Daddy!

First of all Ashley had to work today, so it was Daddy DayCare all day.  Which, if you know anything about how I watch the kids, you'd know that Daddy DayCare is nothing short of AWESOME!  I tend to spoil them.  Well, we had a showing scheduled for this morning.  Our house is on the market and so we have to be willing and ready to slip out for an hour or so.  Fortunately we get a pretty advanced notice, so we can be prepared.  So Daddy took all his chil'ren to the park for a picnic breakfast this morning.  Simply for the fact that it is already hard to keep a house in "show" condition with three preschoolers.  Breakfast is one of our messiest meals of the day.  So it was up, dress, shoes, and out as quickly as possible this morning.  No playing, no eating, no breathing...until we went outside of course.  We had a great time.  We went to a park right by the library.  After we finished our breakfast we found out it was "Library Day" which involves an interactive story time for kids.  So  needing little persuasion, I took the kids to Library Day.  Abigail and Nate are pros at it, so they were excited about being able to go.  It was a lot of fun.  Today's stories were about boats.

Well, the showing was supposed to end around 11, but it wasn't near 11 yet, so we needed to play more after our library excursion.  The park was pretty full, and all two of the swings were taken, so we decided to go to a different park.  (Prior to having families, singles bar hop...Daddies, they park hop!  Oh yeah!)  So we went to Rolesville Park, which is one of the best parks around.  We practically had the whole place to ourselves.  We shared it with the tame squirrels who would get a little too close for comfort.
We hadn't stayed long when the temperatures were reaching about 100 and it was past 11 enough for us to return home.  So we loaded up the truck and we got all settled to make the drive home...and the truck wouldn't start.  Now imagine if you will, being in a hot truck (over 100 degrees) with three preschoolers, no cell phone, no lunch, and no way to get home.  Oh yeah, and I'm not supposed to carry the one year old just yet because of a recent surgery.  Needless to say, I was a bit perplexed as to what in the world I was going to do.

I decided it was too hot to sit in the truck, and since we did have graham crackers we went over to a picnic shelter and had a little snack as we plotted our plan for survival.  There was no way for me to communicate with anyone who could help us.  There were some fast food places within walking distance (Abigail liked that option).  I was just going to borrow their phone to call Uncle Andrew who worked not even two miles from the playground (but since he does landscaping he probably wasn't anywhere close to work).
Finally I asked some of the other park patrons if they had jumper cables.  No one did.  But neither did I, so I guess I couldn't get too frustrated.  Finally, a family who happened to be in a minivan which happened to have three empty seats which happened to have built-in carseats, asked how they could help.  So we put our heads together and decided to run down to Auto Zone for some jumper cables.

Got the cables.  Came back.  Hooked them up.  Nothing worked.  After about a half hour of trouble shooting we finally get the truck started (for all the guys reading this - and are still awake - first of all congratulations on having a great attention span, secondly, it wouldn't start because it wasn't all the way in park...well it was, but there is a bad connection in park...it started in neutral.)
So the family refused to let me thank them by buying them lunch, so we returned the cables to Auto Zone.  By this point I'm soaked in sweat and the kids are just about worn out.  But you know what, even though they'd been through that, they really weren't cranky.

On the way home we drove past a home my buddy is renovating and he gave us the grand tour.  Then we finally made it home and at lunch around 12:45.  We gulped down our chicken and mac 'n cheese and we all went down for a nice hour and half nap....including Daddy (by the way, they never sleep for Mommy).
And you know, one of the best things about it is the kids didn't fight, didn't argue, didn't whine or complain, and didn't have to go potty five times in a row...until Mommy came home.

Who's yer daddy?!  Daddy DayCare is awesome.

Some of my favorite things...

I'll let the pictures do the talking in this post.  This is how we water the grass.  I guess you can say it's a family event.  Notice who is holding the hose most of the time!