The Wandering Vacation

Joel & I recently returned from a wonderful 11 day vacation, and it was such a refreshing time - best vacation we have ever had together.Here's a little pictorial overview:

Day 1: Drive out to an awesome lake cabin & spend time with dear friends - the Clarks, the Miles's, and the Maus's.

Day 2: Spend the day at the lake & then drive down that night to the Peterson's in OK City. Goodbye lake house! Goodbye friends!

Day 3: Joel participates in a triathlon. *Wifely bragging moment to immediately follow* He placed third in his age category, and 69th overall (out of 328). It was a lot of fun to watch. And yes, that's all I did is watch. O, and take pictures. At the end of the race as he was sprinting across the finish line, the guy standing next to me said "that guy is fast." I proudly replied - "that's my husband!" And then he looked at me with disbelief in his eyes. I dunno, maybe it was my baggy pants and sweatshirt and pigtails and still-groggy morning eyes.

We spent the rest of that day driving 12 hours to Louisville, KY.

Day 4: After spending the night at some really precious friend's house that we had met last year at the Global Medical Health Conference, Joel and I got on the road again for another 10 hour drive to Virginia Beach. Seriously gorgeous drive, through the Shenandoah Valley.

Day 5: Spend the day with Joel's brother Micah at Regent's University, where he is pursuing some higher education. We also went to the beach :) Yay!

Day 6: A "just Joel & I" day. Mostly spent at the beach. We sat for a long time & looked at the ocean. There were porpoises playing in the waves, and some really cute ladies taking a painting class. O, and in the east, the woods go right up to the ocean practically. Very strange, but also beautiful in it's own way. Dinner with Micah to celebrate his 26th birthday.

Day 7: Spend the morning at the Jamestown Museum, which was uber-cool. All about the beginning of the American nation, some of it really sad, some of it really brave, but all of it just a slice of God's story. Drove 8 hours to Knoxville, TN.

Day 8: See our dear friends Blake & Beth Stice. Hang out at their recently-totally-flipped house, which looks awesome. Got some fun girl-time with Beth-we saw "Julie & Julia". So, so great.

Day 9: Morning spent at a coffee shop with my cousins - the Burns. A late breakfast at Cracker Barrel (o, how we love you!) with the Stices, and then back on the road to drive to Memphis, TN. Spend some time at my old school, University of Memphis. Check into a gorgeous hotel room (thanks Siebelings!) at the Hampton Inn & Suites. Really special way to end the vacation.

Day 10: Service isn't until 1145, so we sleep in and then watch cartoons on the HUGE flat screen TV. Join the Body at the Life Church of Memphis which is wonderful & full of memories for me. Lunch with some of our dear Memphis friends (including the Siebelings & Sciacchetano's). Back on the road for the 6 hour drive to Tulsa!

Stats. Because you need them:

Miles driven: 2653

Hours in the car: 41 hours, 36 minutes

Minutes driven out of the way to consume Raisin' Canes: 40

Number of license plates spotted (out of the contiguous 48): 43

Other license plates spotted: Alaska, Washington D.C, Manitoba, Ontario, Nova Scotia

Number of first permanent English colonies visited: 1

We had, as I hope you can tell, a wonderful trip. Hope you all get to do the same sometime soon!

If you would like to check out some more vacation pics, go here, where you can check them all out!

Our Prayer

I read this recently on another blog and thought I would share it. This perfectly encapsulates the prayer of our hearts as we dream about the missions field & our journey towards a life serving.

Disturb us, Lord, when

We are too well pleased with ourselves,

When our dreams have come true

Because we have dreamed too little,

When we arrived safely

Because we sailed too close to the shore.

Disturb us, Lord, when

With the abundance of things we possess

We have lost our thirst

For the waters of life;

Having fallen in love with life,

We have ceased to dream of eternity

And in our efforts to build a new earth,

We have allowed our vision

Of the new Heaven to dim.

Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly,

To venture on wider seas

Where storms will show your mastery;

Where losing sight of land,

We shall find the stars.

We ask You to push back

The horizons of our hopes;

And to push into the future

In strength, courage, hope, and love.

[Sir Francis Drake]

Retro-ambulation: the mysterious future

The future has been a mystery ever since God first hinted to me about this whole "medicine idea" of his. I was simply minding my own business wondering what on earth I was going to do with my life, when he opened a can of mystery on me. Now, to be fair, I had been praying for God to speak to me about what I should do with my life, but I had no idea what I was asking for. I wonder how often we really do know what we are asking for when we pray? I know for sure that medicine was the last thing I would have guessed He would direct me into! I expected God to respond with an answer, like, "Joel, seek ye training in plumbing." Simple, easy to understand, no ambiguity. Instead, God only offering me a "next step" and has continued to guide me uni-stepically. I know I am learning to trust him as my future unfolds daily.

Melissa and I can, at any given moment with no advance warning, rattle off an amazing list of questions we want God to answer. Here are a few samples (though if you have been interacting with God much, I suspect you believe me without needed any proof):

• What nation will we spend our lives serving in?
  
• What sending organization will we operate under overseas?
  
• What aspect of medicine will we be involved in?
  
• What additional training should we get now?
  
• What residency program should I attend?
  
• How will we support ourselves overseas?
  
• How will we pay off our educational debt?
  
• What should we do today for our future overseas?
  

And on it goes. For all the information I have about the future I am walking into, I might as well be facing backwards. It is easy to get overwhelmed by the stunning barrage of questions. For me personally, it is even easier to go numb and wallow in the tepid tide of complacency ("If I don't have answers then I might as well stop asking questions and seeking answers."). In so doing I run the risk of failing to seek, ask or knock (Luke 11:9) and thus forfeit the answers. My prayers have been for awakened hunger to seek God, that I find the Sought.

Days are passing 24 full hours at a time and we are learning to trust Him more and more. For this season at least, Melissa and I are walking backwards into God's future for us. We are excited to get there, and by His grace we will get there.

The Fence Saga: it is good

Welcome to our new home for the next 8 months! This is the old and quirky home Melissa and I have taken up residence in. We prayed and thought about our upcoming trip to do medical missions in Kenya and felt that is was a good thing to save all we could. We weren't honestly very excited about leaving our previous and very comfortable apartment. We believe one of our purposes in America is to be good stewards of our finances. This older, cheaper home will definitely help save us money. The house was built in 1928 and we call it our "practice home" because we are practicing some simple home repairs and yard work. The tree in front was a little shaggy the day we took this photo, but we made it get a hair cut.

One of the additions that was very important to us, was building some sort of privacy fence along the north edge of our lot The house sits right on a major arterial street and it was very noisy (especially with all the jacked-down cars blasting music from their external speakers and the ambulances and police chasing said cars). Buying a new privacy fence was far

out of our budget for this, so we set off on a hunt to find cheap materials. When I say we, I mean my astounding wife applied her sleuthing skills to uncover what she could uncover. I am so proud to inform you that she found over 70ft wooden privacy fencing for free! Some guy was tearing down his old fence to build a new one. This was fantastic because it was built of 2x4's and, though weathered, the wood was still in great condition.

So we rented a gas-powered auger (which was glorious), borrowed some good friends, purchased cement and built our 70ft of wooden privacy fence. I am quite proud of the fence... it hasn't fallen yet and doesn't look like it will anytime soon. Huge thanks of course to everyone that came and helped, Joel Maus, Bobby Parks, Kris Crawford, Josh Weed, and Brayden Heath. There is no way I could have made a good fence that straight, sturdy and quickly without their input and vast brawny abilities.

The fence works good and the house is quieter, especially at night. As an added bonus, strangers no longer walk through our yard to access the bus stop on that major street. They actually have to walk around our yard. This is great because it is very disconcerting to wake up in the morning, be standing in your kitchen to get some orange juice and see and Mr. Unkempt amble through your yard. Mr. Unkempt meant and did no harm, but I am glad he walks around our house now rather than through it. If you want to see more pictures of the process, you can visit our facebook album of the event.

The fence saga was a refreshing evidence of community. Without the help of everyone along the way, we never could have accomplished this. Thank you to everyone for your help. Thank you, Lord, for inventing community. As we look on all He has done we are resoundingly convinced that it is good.

God’s provision: automotive edition

The evidence of God's provision has been so clear in our lives recently. That is Christian code for, "life has been rather stressful lately." As I remove my tongue from my cheek, I should introduce our actors today.

Cricket is what we call our 1990 Toyota Camry with 220,000 miles on it. Dolores is our 1999 Pontiac Grand Am with 160,000 miles. Her name means pain and she has frequently succeeded in living up it. Zungu (a take from "Mzungu" = "white man" in Swahili) is our 2005 Genuine Stella scooter. Melissa and I bought Zungu used last year and have had the most enjoyable time, puttering zoom-ily around Tulsa. We think Tulsa is the best town to own a scooter in because you can get everywhere easily on the city streets. Small streets are excellent on a scooter that tops out at 55mph – not very safe highway speeds in my book. Anyway, besides the four feet we own between us, this is our transportation lineup. As much as possible we try to use one car and the scooter to save on gas money, but we can't practically get rid of our second car. My medi cal school rotations take me so many different directions at such odd hours that we haven't figured out how to make a single vehicle plausible.

God's provision started with the front end of a Chrysler Pacifica (one of those weird station-wagons-on-steroids type SUVs). Three weeks ago the jock station wagon entered our automotive lives by picking a fight with Zungu at a stop light. The Chrysler won. I was riding alone and stopped at a light when I was rudely flipped backwards off my mount. Zungu went sliding off a couple yards on his right side, g rinding the 10mph worth of energy he had absorbed from the Chyrsler into the asphalt. I was entirely unhurt, landing flat on my back in the middle of the road. The Chrysler driver was horrified and apologetic, and had good insurance. After all the formalities and phone calls, I ended up pushing the non-functioning Zungu several miles home… which really wasn't so bad as it sounds. I rather enjoyed the nice weather. Also, Chyrsler-man was kind enjoy to hit me on a rare day in which I had no immediate obligations on my time – so I actually had time to push a scooter for a few miles. I recommend it for the soul actually. The end of the story is that we are now -1 scooter (hoping to repair it cheap, African fundi style) and +1 insurance $. We sat on the money, not sure what it should be used for, but God opened a door to apply it very quickly.

God's provision continued two weeks later when, after several months of struggles, our Dolores went to the great salvage yard in the sky (North Tulsa actually). Can I just take a moment to say that it makes me secretly happy that old man Cricket still drives fine? Dolores' non-bang, extra-whimper exit from our f leet left a critical hole that needed to be filled quickly. This is an excellent time to brag on my wife for a minute. She is so amazing and bore the brunt of the inconvenience the repair work on Dolores generated. She has explored and used almost every alternative transportation form available in Tulsa: carpool, carpool, Tulsa buses, driving early/late to drop off/pick me up, and carpool. We used a rental car once or twic e, but prayed for God to provide because that was expensive in a hurry. God provided. The physician I am rotating with loaned us his car for several days (which is unheard of). Several friends offered to loan us their cars for a brief time (which was unexpected). We were so well taken care of.

We began to seriously scour the interne t for a dependable used car and pray for God to open the right doors for us. Here are the websites we used and our post-purchase analysis of them (based loosely on a meat scale since meat is a universal language)

• Consumer Reports – well done, unbiased reviews of used car reliability for the past ten years or so. A subscription is req uired, but the $5.96 for a month was worth it to get trustworthy information on car makes, models and years.
  
• eBay Motors – medium rare, clean site but the purchase interface still makes me nervous (thousands of dollars on eBay? This MK's a little leery)
  
• Craigslist – medium, difficult to wade through the chaotic listings, but the greatest potential for a good deal – chec k it daily!
  
• Autotrader – medium well, has good price range and excellent search engine. Ultimately led to the discovery of the car we purchased.
  
• Vehix – medium rare, more expensive
  

After spending hours and hours rese arching and searching and reresearching, we had it figured out. We were going to buy either a Honda Accord or a Toyota Camry. I know, neither of those choices is very fun, but our first priority was to get a vehicle that would last until we go overseas (4-5 years). We calculated that we drive approximately 20,000 miles per year so we needed a low mileage car that we could safely put 100,000 miles on. As far as personal taste, I wanted a manual (for the authentic third-world feel) and Melissa wante d one of those auxiliary audio ports that plugs iPods straight into the sound system (we have used the fuzzy-sounding radio tuners for years). God had a few tricks up his sleeve. After several unexpected twists just in time (neither early nor late, as God is wont to do), we drove 1.5hr to purchase a 2007 Hyundai Elantra with 44,000 miles for $2,500 off the asking price! It was exactly what we could afford, and a much younger piece of car than we ever expected. Thank you, Lord! The car is a manual and it has an aux audio input… naturally. That is so typical of God. We are very happy with the car and so excited at how God has taken care of us.

Our current fleet:

If you would like to help us name the newest fleetling, please do! We will be scouring the comments for awesome names to consider. Naturally we will let you know what we ultimately decide. If you need some inspiration, here is a link to some photos on facebook.