Tuesday, July 25, 2006

Thanks, God and Moriah

About 11am this morning, Holly and I made a discovery. Amid the boxes, clutter, leftover garage sale junk, and items waiting to be packed, we found ourselves unable to put our hands on our passports.
I know. You would think that people who have just been overseas and are gearing up to go to two different locations overseas would keep a firm grip on that little blue stamp book, but somehow- in the sea of stuff that is our life right now, we misplaced the folder containing not only our passports, but also our birth certificates, marriage licence, car title, and any other important document that is impossible to replace in a week.
We searched, methodically and calm at first, then harried and frantic. Is it under the couch? the attic? is it in the closet? did we pack it in a box? All of these questions and more we asked ourselves many, many times.
At the point where Holly lost hope and I was ready to drive to whatever bureaucratic office I needed to to get this straightened out- we prayed. "God- we need this folder. You know we do, and we cant find it. You know where it is. We do not. We need you to make us remember where it is, or make it appear in our laps right now. Either will work. Forgive us for not holding on to important things. Amen."
Bingo. After some gutwrenching twists and turns, Moriah Farmer remembers that she and Holly rode in Blakes old jeep for one day, two weeks ago. In the absolute last place we would have looked or remembered, there it is.
God is good to us, even though we cant keep up with our passports. Amazing. I couldnt help but think of the parable of the woman who lost the coin and turned her whole house upside down to find it. Thank you Lord, for searching like that for us, when we were lost.
We celebrated with a cookies and cream milkshake from Chick-fil-A.
So- the moral of the story is that we are still going to the Dominican Republic. We have our passports because God wants us there and hes not going to let our forgetfulness stand in the way. We should have known that.
Here's a picture of our living room after the Great Passport Search of '06:

Monday, July 24, 2006

Boxes and 'byes




You know the feeling when you pack and pack, box after box, and then look around and realize it looks as though you havent packed a thing? This is the feeling Holly and I have after packing up much of our books, bedding, etc. There is still so much to pack- and we reeally tried to get rid of almost everything. maybe once we get the furniture moved out- It is a little disappointing, truthfully, that we still have so much stuff- but at least most of this stuff has some sort of intrinsic worth or sentimental value.
We also have had a weekend full of goodbyes ( or see you laters, rather) from our lifegroup(s) and friends from church. Last night all of the life groups we have been a part of in the last 3 years got together and blessed us with prayers, hugs, and a money tree. It was lots of fun to see everyone together, especially since so many of us have or are having kids right now. Its hard to believe how much these families will grow ove the next little bit.
Here's some pics of the Nashville goodbyes:

Monday, July 17, 2006

lake break

Hey guys- Holly and I are taking the quintessential American vacation for the next few days- we are tubing, skiing, and fishing at Lake Ouachita with some good friends. Fried catfish for dinner and plenty of bugspray to make us smell nice- how much better does it get?
When we get back to Nashville, we will be frantically trying to tie up all our loose Nashville ends before heading to OK and KS to see family. After that, we go to Guatemala!!! Quieres aprender Espanol?
But right now- all that seems years away, and we are enjoying the friends and the freedom to float before we have to reeaally start thinking about leaving.


Tuesday, July 11, 2006

yard sale, more like... hard sale

Well, Holly and I hit a milestone the other day- our first-ever yard sale. We wanted to lighten our load and possibly make a bit of cash in the process, so we set about to sell our junk.
One of the first things that we learned in this process is that there is an entire culture of people who do nothing on their Saturdays than mosey about, thumbing through other people's junk. We were told, that in order to attract the best of these "denizens of the discarded", we should post an ad in the paper. As I forked over the $27.50 for the ad, I thought to myself..." Self, will we even make our $27.50 back on this sale?".I didn't like the idea of going into a rummage sale in the red, but was assured by many that it would pay off.
Several days from the sale, we started to collect the unwanted items and place them in our guest room. Very soon, there was no room for guests. Why is it human nature to hoard things that we dont need? We couldn't believe the amount of items that, when faced with either keeping, or selling for 25 cents, we would elect to sell. We had a room full of junk, that began spilling into our living area.
In the meantime, I was off, running telephone pole publicity for our little sale, and learned an interesting fact: It is against the law to tack, staple, nail, pin, or otherwise attatch anything to a telephone pole. Did you know this? Apparently it has to do with the frequency of injury to workers- the thousands of little staples can cause serious injury to a worker whose chainsaw kicks back on him. In lieu of breaking that specific law, I stole several political campaign signs and "re-issued" them as yard sale advertisements. (In my defense, these candidates has either won or lost several weeks ago.)
Our good friends Blake and Moriah helped us tag every item worth tagging, and we prepared for an early morning, getting out and arranging everything at about 6 AM.
I woke up at 5:45 to let the dog out, and people were pulling into the driveway.
I was literally dumbfounded. These people looked at me, expectantly, as if to say... " Hey- where's your junk?". I let them know that we were getting started at seven, and that they could come back then. As soon as there was one table out of the seven set up, more people came streaming onto our lawn. At 6:15, there was no turning anyone away, as there were already ladies starting to bicker over the paperback selection. We had a constant, frantic flow of traffic until Noon.
One of the main tenets of Garage Sale culture is that no one can park their car in an orderly manner. We have plenty of spacious parking, but many people pulled in and left their car actually blocking the way in or out. I had to direct several elderly people back to their car to move out of the way of traffic. One woman actually put her blinkers on and left her car in the eastbound lane or our two lane road, backing traffic up for almost a mile down our road. Several people decided our driveway was too steep, so they pulled into our neigbors drive, across their lawn, and into our yard. NO KIDDING.
In the end, Holly and I sold much of our junk- people bought the wierdest things. We decided the immigrant population was our favorite demographic, since they didnt have the language skills, nor the inclination to haggle over a 25 cent shirt. All the white people argued about prices- the immigrants seemed to understand that a Quarter for a button down shirt was a good deal.
In the end, Holly and I came away with about 400 dollars of small bills, quarters, nickels and dimes for our efforts. Had we known the rate of tax deduction from Goodwill, we probably would have chosen that route, but... its an experience, right? We also found ourslelves convicted that WE HAVE TOO MUCH STUFF!!! I dont know that Jesus had a storage facility somewhere with his couches, books, and knick-knacks while he hiked through Judea. In fact- there was something about not storing up treasures on earth...? (Not that anything we sold could be classified as such) It was just such a stark reminder that we want to be a people who "travel light" as Lucado would say. We want the important things to be the relationships in our lives, the grace we can give- not the candleholders that we get. Im not saying that we wont have a few things in storage, but I am saying that this experience has helped to remind us of who we want to be.
And may God help us to never, ever have another garage sale again. (goodwill, come and get it!!)
Blessings- TJ and Holly