Wacky Wild Weekend (With Wierd Winter Weather)

Several weeks ago, the phone rang.

What set this call apart from most others was the voice on the other end. It belonged to Donna Misiano - a friend I haven't talked to in several years. She had called to ask us to come down to Richmond, VA, for their church's 40th anniversary celebration on January 21st. (A brief historical sidenote, without which this paragraph makes no sense: Danny & I moved to Richmond 2 weeks after our wedding, and he spent 2 years there as Youth Pastor.)

"Let me talk this over with Danny," I said, "and I'll call you back in a few days."

Mind you, I planned to briefly mention her call to Danny, agree with him that it was sweet of them to want us to visit, and call her back to politely refuse. And there were plenty of legitimate reasons not to go. Danny would have to find someone to preach for him on Sunday, and someone else to run a meeting after the service. I would have to find someone to do nursery registration for me, and we would have to miss a birthday party on Saturday night. Then we'd have to decide how on earth we would manage making 2 nine-hour trips with three small children in 4 days.

The more we talked about it, though, the more we were both convinced we needed - and wanted - to go. In fact, the chapter I was reading when Donna called (from Real Worship by Warren Wiersbe) was all about loving other believers, and how we often underestimate what a great encouragement our mere presence in a worship service can be to our brothers and sisters in Christ.

So Friday morning we took off and drove about 4.5 hours to Beckley, WV, where we spent the night in a hotel. It was a blast - we spent several hours alternating between the pool and the hot tub, which the kids absolutely loved. It was almost worth digging all of their swimming gear out of the attic the day before! Back up in the hotel room, Rachel & Zekers pretended they were dogs sleeping under the beds (I don't even want to think about what else was down there), and Kari contentedly ate fries out of the trash (left from our dinner) and off the floor. It's never any use trying to stop her - she just hunts down more gross stuff to eat. Then we put the kids to bed, and Danny & I read for a while by the bathroom. (It was the only light we could leave on if we wanted the kids to sleep, so we pulled up a couple of chairs by the bathroom door! It was actually kind of cozy.)

The next morning the kids pigged out on waffles & yogurt, courtesy of the hotel, and we drove the rest of the way to Richmond. This was probably the most fun drive of the whole trip - I kept excitedly pointing out grazing cows and beautiful mountains, until Rachel started sighing every time I made her look up from her Leap Frog to see the sights. The kids were unbelievably good; they listened to some CDs from the library over and over; the songs are now on "continuous play" in my head! Of course, Zeke had the second largest blowout of his life as soon as we reached the Misianos'. It was all over his clothes as well as the bed he was playing on. Luckily, I can never decide which outfits to pack because all their clothes are so cute, so we had plenty of extra clothes.

I cannot even describe to you how good it was to spend time with old friends, many of whom we'd lost touch with in the 7+ years since we moved away. It came out on the trip home that we had both secretly wondered if anyone would really remember us, or if many of the people we'd known would still be at the church. As it turned out, everyone we really wanted to see was there. I couldn't believe it - these dear dear people, who touched our lives so deeply during our first 2 years as a married couple, actually seemed to think we'd contributed something to theirs, and poured out on us love and thanks we didn't deserve. Even many who had left the church came back for the anniversary celebration, and we saw some of the kids we'd worked with in youth group (now in college students and graduates - yes, I felt quite old). What a gift. The weekend was such a whirlwind I realized on the way home that I hadn't taken any pictures, except a few of the kids.

The plan was to leave Richmond at 5am on Monday, but because of some impending bad weather we decided to leave Sunday afternoon. By the time the festivities ended and we got on the road, it was 3:30, and we ended up running into some snow and ice driving through the mountains. I can't remember just how many vehicles we saw wrecked by the side of the road. The fact that we were forced to drive at 35 mph most of the way back to Beckley ended up stretching the trip out, and getting us home at 3:30am on Monday. But the kids slept from 9:30 until we got home, which was a blessing indeed. The sort of icky part was that they only slept in until 7:00 that morning, but we were grateful to have arrived home before the roads through the mountains turned into sheets of ice.

And now, I can't help thinking that as great an encouragement as the trip was, I'm glad to be HOME! As much as we miss our dear friends in Richmond, I can't imagine leaving our family and friends, and our incredible church body, here. If God ever calls us elsewhere we'll go, of course, but I can't help praying that He'll continue to call us to stay right where we are (physical location-wise)! So, praise God for a great trip, and praise Him for a wonderful home to come back to.