April 14 – “A man and his … rake”

I am sore today.  Well, not as sore as I was yesterday after we did some yard work, but sore nonetheless.  It all started at WalMart, as has often been the case for anyone who lives in Galveston.  WalMart or Home Depot and sometimes Target pretty much hold the reins of any kind of outdoor business on the Island.  Unless of course you want to include Tom’s Thumb Nursery for really special plant kind of stuff that you don’t want to trust to one of the major chain box stores.  In our case all Chris needed was some potting soil.  Lots of potting soil.  Her plan was to put one of the final two trees the city gave us into a huge pot and let it grace the top of our deck.  If it grows, perhaps we will finally have some shade up there, and the site might actually be useful again.  It has been in the same little pot that it came in for almost a year now, and it is starting to bud out some leaves, so it is definitely still alive.  We are still waiting to see how fast persimmon trees grow.  Three others are planted on one side of the house.  The pecan tree they gave us is also still in a pot, but we won’t know until later on if it is still alive and well.  Pecan trees always get started later than everything else. 

Once the tree was repotted and relocated upstairs, I set to work trying to level out our side yard a bit. It was mangled into a sorry state by the excavator that tore down the house next door.  That was some hard work.  One man with a lonely garden rake against the ravages of the evil excavator.  Scraping sand.  Pulling weeds.  Dragging chunks of cement.  We even discovered some of those deadly grub worms in the mix.  Fortunately we had already planned to spread some anti-grub worm matter on the lawn.  Sounds like something Batman would pull out of his utility belt.  In this case it was Chris who had the utility belt.  She spread the stuff and even had time to spread a layer of Weed ‘n’ Feed.  All while I was toiling away with the rake.  Stroke after stroke.  Scrape after scrape.  Groan after groan. Pain after pain.  Hence my present state of affliction. 

Chris seemed to fare much better than I.  She actually went shoe shopping after getting cleaned up.  Not my idea of a relaxing afternoon, but she loved it.  At least she came home with some new sandals.  I have new shoes on my list as well.  Shouldn’t take too long for me, though.  Nike leather-toe cross-trainers size 10 and a half.  Only big decision for me is whether to go black or white this time.  Guess I’ll wait and see what’s on sale. 

Psalms 86:3-4 says, “Have mercy on me, O Lord, for I call to you all day long.  Bring joy to your servant, for to you, O Lord, I lift up my soul.”

Father that joy of yours is such a precious commodity.  Thank you for it.  Amen.

April 13 – “Sitting alone at Firestone”

I was sitting alone at Firestone, waiting patiently for my two new tires to be installed and my two old tires to be rotated.  I know.  Sounds like the start of a Country-Western ballad.  But I was really there yesterday.  The front tires on our car were getting pretty bare, and Chris was adamant that I get them replaced before I drive to Fort Worth next weekend.  Nobody was close enough to bother with a request to give me a ride both ways, so I decided to act like my Dad would have in a similar situation.  I got there at 7 a.m.  Sure worked for me this time.  They took it right in.  And the only thing extra I agreed to was an alignment.  That’s a surprise based on my past dealings with Firestone.  They usually come out with at least two or three “needed maintenance” things.  At least they are not as bad as the dealer, though.  They can come up with a laundry list of things, whether you need them or not. 

While I was waiting I got a text from one of the fire fighters.  He made me a chaplain’s cap and it was ready to be picked up.  Tires installed, I headed out to his station.  The squad was driving away as I walked up, so I figured the hat would have to wait.  I still went in to say hi to whoever was still around, though.  Just as I entered the captain’s office Nathan called.  The guys from the departing engine had called him to call me and tell me where the caps were.  The guy who actually found the hat was one of the drivers who was on vacation when I was introduced last week.  He commented, “I didn’t know we had a chaplain.”  That was all the other two guys needed.  They informed him about the meeting he had missed, and one of them commented, “Yeah, he’s Nathan’s Dad, the only guy in the whole fire department who can have a beard.”  I pointed out that I had been wondering about whether I would be required to shave it off, but he quickly reassured me and insisted that I was to keep the beard.  I assured him that since I had no intention of running into burning buildings, mask or not, so I would keep it.  I also asked what kind of hugs call the other guys were all heading to.  Answer?  “Breakfast.”  Hey, we all have to eat.

I really do like the cap.  It has the standard Galveston Fire-Rescue on the front, with K. Vaughan in the back.  But on the side it identifies me as Chaplain, followed by a cross.  I called the guy who made to let him know of my appreciation.   

In the afternoon I helped Kel and Christina get the last of their stuff out of their old house.  They have a buyer.  While driving to LaMarque with my truckload of stuff, I got a call from the Fire Department office.  The secretary told me I have a fitting for my chaplain uniform on Tuesday.  They were also ordering me some business cards and wanted to make sure they had all the correct information.  Guess this is really happening.

Psalms 85:11-13 says, “Faithfulness springs forth from the earth, and righteousness looks down from heaven.  The Lord will indeed give what is good, and our land will yield its harvest.  Righteousness goes before him and prepares the way for his steps.”

Father, please open the way for some new ministry opportunities through the fire department.  Amen.

April 12 – “Remembering Kennebunkport”

Here’s a quick update on one of my ongoing projects.  I have been slowly making progress on scanning our old photographs into the computer for storage.  And we have a lot of old photographs.  Some are from when we were kids, but the majority of them date from our wedding (oh, so long ago) to that fateful day when Chris finally got her hands on a digital camera.  From that point on the picture taking disease took a firm grasp upon her and steadily worsened until now it is nothing for us to have literally hundreds of jpeg images to wade through after an event.  And Chris has been doing her best to encourage Cailyn to carry on the family tradition.  We have at least one folder for every month that contains nothing but Cailyn’s creative approaches to photography.  She takes pictures of the dogs, the snails she finds, legs, arms, dresses she is working on sewing with Nani, her Daddy’s nose hairs.  I guess you get the idea.  Photography is a valued profession among the Vaughan women.

So back to the scanning progress.  I am just about half way through the year 2000.  And what an eventful year that was.  Through the miracle of ancient photography – the kind where you had to actually load film into the camera and then have it developed by one of those special places - I was able to re-live our 25^th wedding anniversary trip to Maine.  Ah, now that was quite a trip.  Our children surprised us by presenting us a notebook at church one Sunday.  In it were some tickets and travel information for Chris’ dream trip to Maine.  That had been a family joke for many years.  Ever since the year we took my dream trip to the Baseball Hall of Fame in New York.  I refused to drive the five or six hours out of our way just so we could say we had been to Maine.  One of the pages in the notebook informed me that I had no choice this time.  I honestly don’t remember much about the trip except that we saw Kennebunkport, the retreat of President Bush, and we watched a Little League baseball game.  That was Chris’ concession to me for the lighthouses.  I guess we probably saw a Lighthouse or two … thousand.  They were everywhere and Chris was in light house heaven.  Oh, and I ate some lobster for the first time.  Definitely worth the trip.  Kind of like crab, only sweeter.

Psalms 85:10 says, “Love and faithfulness meet together; righteousness and peace kiss each other.”

Father, thank you for memories.  Thank you more for the one you gave me to make the memories with.  Amen.

April 11 – “Honoring Chief McLane”

I had the privilege of attending the memorial service for Jamaica Beach Police Chief Andy McLane yesterday.  I have to say it earned a place right up there near the top on my list of impressive events.  I didn’t know Chief McLane well.  He had always been pleasant an accommodating the times he or other officers stopped by to check on the church facilities.  They were great about making sure everything was fine with us.  In fact they often went above and beyond the call of duty. 

One time we were having an event at the church and a Jamaica Beach police officer came to the door.  He asked if I knew the two teenagers he had with him.  As it happened, I did know them.  They had come to several events at the church.  The officer told me they had been pretending to fight on the side of the road and had caused one driver to almost have a wreck.  She thought one of them was really injured, so she finally pulled over and called 911.  Sounded to me like they were probably having a great time, and the scenario probably was pretty funny.  Apparently the officer thought so as well, but they were disrupting traffic.  He didn’t want to have to arrest them, though, so he brought them over to the church to see if we were doing something they could get involved in.  Of course we welcomed them in.  Now that was some creative police work as far as I was concerned.  The kids didn’t have to go to court, and they didn’t even have to tell their parents what happened, although Jamaica Beach is a pretty small community.  It probably didn’t take long for the parents to hear about it.  I don’t remember if the officer was Andy or not, but it typifies the approach to police work he must have encouraged.

Here’s a list of some the organizations that were represented:   Jamaica Beach, Tomball, Santa Fe, Texas Department of Public Safety, Hitchcock, League City, Kemah, Houston, Texas City Galveston, Eustace, Baytown, Seabrook, Manvel, Brazoria County sheriff, Galveston County sheriff, UTMB police, Galveston ISD police, Friendswood, Constables, Port of Galveston, detectives from many forces, Galveston Fire Department, Jamaica Beach Fire Department.  I’m sure there many others I didn’t see.  They lined the aisles of the packed church during the service, and they stood at attention as the casket was returned to the hearse.  The line of vehicles to the cemetery was amazing.  Along the route through town, trucks of the Galveston Fire Department waited to assist with blocking traffic.   The procession left town by driving under the outstretched ladders of the Jamaica Beach Fire Department trucks.  Most definitely an impressive way to honor someone who served the community. 

Psalms 85:8-9 says, “I will listen to what God the Lord will say; he promises peace to his people, his saints — but let them not return to folly.  Surely his salvation is near those who fear him, that his glory may dwell in our land.”

Father, walk with Andy’s family and friends through their grief.  Amen.

April 10 – “Jetty 29 – A Love Story”

I spent the whole day yesterday at the Galveston County Courthouse.  It was a day comprised primarily of waiting.  I found out when I arrived that I was schedule to be a character witness, which meant I was hastily sworn in and then consigned to the hall to wait until my turn to testify came up.  And as it happened, my turn didn’t come up until sometime later in the afternoon.  I rued my decision not to bring along my book of crossword puzzles, but I did get a chance to meet a lady who was there to give her lawyer a document he needed.  She kind of inserted herself into another conversation I was having about Seaside.  She had just moved to Galveston and wanted to know some churches she and her fiancée could visit.  She said they were looking for a place with people their own age, mid to late twenties.  Of course she heard our biased opinion about Seaside, but she was living on 30^th street, so I gave her some other options.  She then told us the romantic story of how she met her fiancée after spending some time out on Jetty 29, praying specifically for God to send her the right guy.  Two days after the prayer time, the two met and clicked right away and soon discovered that on the very same day she had been there, he had gone out on Jetty 29 and prayed for God to send him the right girl.  Sounds like a schmaltzy movie plot for the Lifetime channel, doesn’t it?  She shared a lot more with me later during our mutual waiting period, so I assured her I would pray for her. 

I finally gave my testimony and after some brief closing statements, the next period of waiting began, this time for the jury verdict.  It had to be nerve-wracking for the family.  As it turned out, they got a pretty good verdict, as good as they could hope for according to their lawyer.

I did get a chance in there to race home for some lunch.  Cailyn was spending the day with Nani, so we ate together.  And our lunchtime conversation?  We were in the kitchen.  She took up her spot on the floor and asked me to pass her the bag of Cheetos.  Once she was comfortable she looked up at me and said:

Cailyn: “Now we can talk.  DadDad, did you know that zombie phones stand on top of each other and move up until they get inside of your body.” 

DadDad: “Did you say zombie phones?  I didn’t know there were zombie phones.  That sounds kind of scary.  I sure don’t want one of them inside of me.”

Cailyn: “Me either.  Oh, and let me tell you something about zombies.  Zombies eat wood and your brains.  I don’t want them to eat my brains.  That’s why I told you yesterday to be quiet, because I heard a zombie and he wanted to eat your brains.”

DadDad: “Ah.  Well thank you for the warning.  I’d like to keep what little brains I still have.”

You have to watch out for those zombies … and their phones.

Psalms 85:4-7 says, “Restore us again, O God our Savior, and put away your displeasure toward us.  Will you be angry with us forever?  Will you prolong your anger through all generations?  Will you not revive us again, that your people may rejoice in you?  Show us your unfailing love, O Lord, and grant us your salvation.”

Father, thank you for walking with that family through the court process yesterday.  And thank you for the “chance encounter” with the Jetty 29 lady.  Bless her and her fiancée in their life together.  Amen.

April 9 – “Getting through a Monday”

On Mondays I usually have a pretty long laundry list of things that have to get done.  Church website.  Church FaceBook page.  Birthday cards for the week.  Pay bills.  Type up notes from any meetings that happened over the weekend.  Get started on next week’s sermon and Bible Studies.  I have never understood why I make Monday such a full work day, since I am generally emotionally drained after Sunday. 

Yesterday proved to be a bit of a deviation from the norm.  I did wade right in when I got up, and I did get a lot of the usual stuff done, but it soon became apparent that a full day at the computer was just not happening.  After Chris got up, she let me know that we really needed groceries.  We were rapidly approaching “out of everything” status.  She put together a list and brought it to me.  Since I was in “Organized” mode, I whipped open a new file on the computer and typed up the list, organizing it by which items come up as I walk down the aisles at WalMart.  Back in the day when Chris and I went grocery shopping together, organization didn’t matter much.  We went down each aisle slowly, because we were usually talking about the day or the days to come.  We rarely missed anything we needed.  Going by myself since we can’t leave Mom alone has caused me to revert back into hunter mode, though.  Now I want to know what I am after and where it is so I can have a successful hunt and spend whatever lag time I may have watching people.  List accomplished, it still took me an hour or so to get everything. 

After a quick lunch we then attacked the back yard.  Chris had a variety of projects going there and needed some help finishing them up.  We hung a hanging basket.  Well, we did get it up finally, after breaking a drill bit trying to put it one spot, we moved it to a place that was easier to drill.  I know.  That’s a strange way to solve the problem, but Chris moved some stuff around and repotted some plants and made it look really nice.  We threw away an old hose and a sprinkler that didn’t sprinkle.  I swept the cover of the hot tub that hasn’t been hot since Hurricane Ike.  Jury’s still out on whether we ever will get it fixed.  We re-tied some rope we have hanging for the kids to climb on.  Now there is not as much stress on the deck’s decorative pieces.  I even figured out a way to hang the old hobby horse.  Its frame rusted away after the hurricane, so I ran some rope through it and attached it to the swing hooks.  Now we have to wait until Cailyn or Josiah or Caleb gets here to see if it will actually work.  I know the rope is not strong enough to hold anyone who weighs more than they do.

When we finished out back we just sat at the table out there and talked for a while.  It was very nice.  At least until Chris started to get cold.  That sweet sea breeze felt great.  Maybe I should do this on Mondays more often.

Psalms 84:12 says, “O Lord Almighty, blessed is the man who trusts in you.”

Fatehr, I want to be that man.  I trust you.  Amen.

April 8 – “pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanokoniosis”

We seem to be holding strong attendance-wise at Seaside.  Even with the Iron Man Triathalon blocking off streets and causing major traffic tie-ups, we still had 48 people attending.  We had a few folks from out of town, but even some new locals gave us a try.  That’s always encouraging. 

I particularly enjoyed doing the Kids’ Sermon yesterday.  Cailyn was there, so Kiara had a buddy to play with and to join her at the front for the mini-teaching.  There were five or six other kids there as well, but they were being shy and hanging close to moms and dads.  They eventually came up to the drawer of secrets to get a gift, though.  And we had a first in that department.  One little boy grabbed one of the tithe training banks and was very excited to have it.  Gotta be a lesson there on being excited about stewardship. 

The teaching was on what to do when you don’t know the answer to something.  I started out by asking “What do you know about transubstantiation?”  The two gorgeous little four-year-old girls just looked up at me with blank stares.  I couldn’t even get any takers from the rest of the crowd to wade in on that one.  So I moved on to:

“What is pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanokoniosis?”  Still no response from the girls.  I couldn’t even pronounce it myself, so I went ahead and gave the answer to this one.  It’s currently the longest word that is in a major dictionary.  Some kind of lung disease.  The next question was, “What do you do when you don’t know the answer to something?”  I thought surely one of them would suggest asking Mommy or Daddy at least.  But still I got the stares.  Cailyn finally climbed up on my stool to be closer to the action, and Kiara stood ever closer to my leg, but all I got was an overemphasized shrug of the shoulders and “I don’t know?”  Not exactly the answer I had hoped for, but it still kept the gate open for me to fill in all the blanks.  Ask someone you trust.  Look it up in a source that is reputable.  (No, I didn’t use that word with the kids.  It’s just the most accurate one to explain the point). 

That’s what the two disciples of John the Baptist did when he pointed out Jesus to them as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.  Because they trusted John and knew Scripture, they followed Jesus.  Good example for us when it comes to questions of faith and morality.  Who do you trust?  What does he say?  How does it match up with the most reputable (there’s that word again) source you can find?  Of course that source would be the Bible from my perspective.  Certainly better than Wikipedia, but don’t get me started on that one.  I’ll just ask this: Which do you think is more trustworthy: the Bible, which has been around for thousands of years through many different languages and has consistently come forth with the same message, or Wikipedia, which anyone can change at any time with a simple touch of the keyboard? 

Psalms 84:11 says, “For the Lord God is a sun and shield; the Lord bestows favor and honor; no good thing does he withhold from those whose walk is blameless.”

Father, I thank you for the trustworthy people you placed in my life over the years.  Sometimes it’s just easier to hear truth from somebody with a heart and a hug.  Amen.