Relationships...it's what makes life interesting!

The last two weeks have been travel weeks. I use to travel a lot but have really curtailed travel over the last couple of years. I made a trip last summer to Russia -- and read Mary's blog on her recent trip which reminded me of how great it was.
This last trip though was to much more modest places. Starting two weeks ago it was a four trip to Kansas City, returned home for four days and headed out again to Cincinnati, and then four days later drove up to Cleveland. Now honestly, how many people do you know who took two weeks to visit those three cities?
The remarkable thing about the trip was that I drove through snow in all three!!!! Amazing!!! I thought, "I'm going south, it will be Spring". Foolish thinking I'm afraid. It was an amazing 60+ degrees one afternoon in KC, but the trip home was through a snowy, sloppy, crappy Iowa and SW Wisconsin. A few days later, heading to Cincinnati, we hit a snow storm in No. Indiana and drove through that snow all the way to Cincy...about 4 hours worth. Then a few days later, another crappy snowy trip north to Cleveland. Cleveland is on Lake Erie, so snow tended to fall steadily during the whole time we were there, and then the ride home was snow through all of Ohio and part of No. Indiana. Yuck!!! I've been longing for Spring and getting Winter.

OK, so why keep traveling in the snow belt? One reason: Relationships.

Kansas City has Wendy Andrews and Linnea Spransy...two wonderfully beautiful girls who moved from Madison last summer to become a part of a new church plant, and to stretch their creative and leadership gifts for the sake of the Kingdom in art and prayer. Unfortunately, Linnea was on a trip to NYC, but we crashed Wendy's birthday party and got an opportunity to see the stuff she is involved in as co-director of 24/7 Prayer USA and on the leadership team of her new church.
Cincinnati was a trip with some of the Training Center students to Norwood, a city within Cincinnati. Norwood is home to our friends in Vineyard Central. Again, the simple reason for the visit is relationships. Our friends Dave & Jody Nixon hosted us for several days. It was a wonderful time for retreat and rest. I marvel at the way they have lived together in an intentional community for quite a few years. Their presence in a very poor area of Cincinnati being "salt and light" for the sake of Christ's Kingdom.
Finally, four of us: Fran, Jamie and Alexis...three girls and myself trekked north through the snow to Cleveland. There we joined up with the rest of the Training Center folk who had traveled to other places and joined up with some new friends from a church community to share the weekend together sharing life, jamming, and eating good food. One of the highlights of the trip was meeting new friends, Todd and Laurel...and Bob. Bob is 60, an advertising exec who lives about 30 minutes out in the country in a beautiful home and he hosted us for the evening...what a wonderful time it was. Staying a strange home is always a bit of a stretch for me. I never quite feel comfortable, but Bob managed to make things comfortable right away. My conversation with him was one of the highlights of the last two weeks away.
Relationships:
Wendy who've I've known well.
Dave & Jody who I've come to know more and more as friends.
Fran, Jamie, Alexis, Jordan who all traveled hours with me in one leg or another -- young adults with the old guy laughing, goofing around, listening together with me as I explain the story behind the music from "Les Miserables" for three hours...talking seriously at some times and hilariously at others.
Todd, Laural, and Bob who've I've just met. Relationships...it's what makes life interesting, don't you think?

Eatin' Crap

This morning Linda and I joined Dan & Jennie Sandridge on a morning walk...with our two dogs, Tully (our 10 month old Golden Retriever) and Micah (their 11 month old Golden Retriever). The two dogs have met twice now and it was love at first site...ok, maybe not love because they are both males and I don't want to get into that kind of a mess, but they really really like one another. They ran to each other as soon as they saw each other and played and played and played.

The walk consisted of allowing the dogs to run free as we walked along the bicycle trail that runs near our house in Cottage Grove. This trail is a wonderfully flat old railroad bed that actually goes from Cottage Grove to near Milwaukee! Some 80 miles if I am correctly assessing the distance. The dogs ran ahead, either playing with each other, or sticking their noses into the ground to smell who had dropped the latest "animal dew". I was telling Dan that we really had to watch Tully because he has the habit of grabbing "animal logs" (excrement, crap, shit, whatever you want to call it). Dan replied that Micah does a lot of sniffing, but no eating. Wow, I thought, if only I could get Tully to leave it alone, I could probably handle the sniffing. About that time, Micah dove into the side of the trail and even though he was told to come back, he remained fixed on a "clump" of what only looked like a mass of leaves. We managed to get him to drop it and went on ahead. Later on the return, having forgotten all about this mass of something, Micah ran far ahead, and we all too late realized he was headed for the leaf mass. Before Dan could stop him...well let's just say it wasn't a pretty site. He ate it all!!! And, he smelled very, very bad! Inside, I'm going..."Way to go Tull"...he had listened, but I tried to be polite and sympathetic to Dan and Jenn as they had to contend with "what do we do with a dog that has just eaten a pile of crap?"
I got to thinking about that...it doesn't seem logical that anything that can think would want to eat something else's poop.
But, then again, I realize that we can all be prone to listening to the lies within...
"I'm never going to make it..."
"I can't do anything right..."
"Why am I so stupid?"
"What's wrong with me?"
I think that is the same thing as eatin crap myself!

Lindsay's Trip Home

Lindsay came home for a visit with all of us and it has been a fantastic week...it feels so much like the past that it's hard to believe that it is only for a week.

We had a wonderful gathering at the airport to welcome Lindsay back. It started even before she got off the plane as Kelly, Chris and Sarah joined Andy, Linda and me to await her arrival.
Kelly came up from Chicago for the weekend, and stayed over until Tuesday morning.
Kelly and Greg are moving back here...hopefully in the summer.
Jobs, house, dogs, the move, Satellite TV to get Cubs, Bears, and Illinois sports are all a part of the process. It's going to be great to have Kelly and Greg around.

Finally though Lindsay came down the steps and we began this last week of fun.
















After the typical delays caused by missing luggage, we headed home. Lindsay met Tertullian for the first time..."Tully" as everyone calls him loved Lindsay from the first time he met her.

Lindsay also lovedTully . He found in Linds, someone who loved to cuddle...something he usually also wants to do.

She spoiled him as he slept on top of her bed just about every night.

I don't know how Tully is going to handle her leaving tomorrow. Today, Andy and Lindsay took off to do some last minute shopping and he started whining less than five minutes after they had left!


As anyone who knows us could guess...it didn't take long before we were playing games together. Our family is game crazy and it's all because the Mother in this family - my affectionate lovely Linda - conceives of heaven as a long game night!

Besides all that, Lindsay met Steph...Stephanie! It was sweet to see them enjoy one another. Steph seems such a natural part of us. We love her and enjoyed the week of Lindsay's visit with her.

















There are so many wonderful things about having Lindsay home for the week. The conversations around life, relationships, family, friendships, God and the crazy zany world of "Church" to name a few. Lindsay is so many things: Smart, Beautiful, Wonderfully funny.... She is reflective of the world while able to laugh at the idiosyncrasies of her own life, as well as our family! In otherwords, she has learned well to take God seriously and remember that all the rest is at times a good laugh.















We had lots of fun, as you can well imagine...It's really hard to say goodbye. Really love you Linds...you'll always be my girl!