"Fun"raising Tour Report 3

About a week ago, we arrived in Eastern Oklahoma. As we arrived, I was again reminded of how similar the landscape of Eastern Oklahoma and Western Massachusetts really is. They are both beautiful!

When we arrived, we went to my grandparents house to show them what was happening in MA. It was great to see them and let them know what God was doing. The girls spent the time mourning the upcoming separation from their Poppie, my dad and their Grandma Joanne. The time finally came to leave and their was much sadness. Part of being called to do what we do means being away from people that we love dearly. It is not always easy, but we know what we are called to do. Please pray for our girls to continue to listen to the Spirit as He communicates His will for our lives and gives peace to deal with the consequences of that calling.

The girls spirits were lifted when they arrived at their Nana's house though. It was great to see the girls continue this time of joy on this trip by seeing their Nana and Grandpa Ed. We have been with my mom for about a week now and it has been great! They have loved swimming, playing, watching movies and hanging out with Nana. It has also been great hosting many of our friends who live around here as well. Our friends Matt & Cara Yakel and their kids Keagan and Kate came over and hung out one night and we swam & BBQ'd. It was great to see all of them again. It is wonderful to be with people that pray for and support us throughout the year. We were able to hang out and swim and laugh, a lot. It is always fun to be around these friends.

Sunday, the 19th, we traveled to Dewitt, AR to speak to FBC, Dewitt. My good friend Lindsay Robinson is getting married on the 25th and I am officiating the wedding, so it was great to join her and her fiance that weekend. It was also a blessing to be introduced to her pastor at FBC, Kelly Jones and his family. As you can probably tell by this picture, Kelly is very funny and we had a great time together. Kelly was kind enough to open up his pulpit and allow me to present our ministry and speak Sunday morning. The podcast for the sermon I preached is found here: FBC, Dewitt Podcast. Thanks so much Kelly & FBC Dewitt!!

When we got back to Eastern, OK, we reconnected with the girls who had a great time that weekend with their cousins and other family. On Monday night, we swam and grilled out and had a great time. However, at dinner that night, Kenzie mentioned that she thought that she swallowed something sharp that was hurting her throat. Knowing that she has asthma, we thought that it might be something to do with her gag reflex, but as she continued to complain about it, we sensed something was pretty wrong. Luckily, my cousin Russell, who is a respiratory therapist, was eating with us and looked into her throat. He suggested we go to the ER because he saw something "shiny". I looked to confirm what he saw and sure enough, there was something there. We loaded her up and went to the ER. On our way there, I called my friend Matt Duke, who is a registered nurse, and got his opinion on the situation. Within 20 minutes, Matt shows up at the ER to sit with us and see what he could do. However, as Kenzie got more and more nervous, Christie suggested bringing Matt in and having him explain to Kenzie what is going to happen. This seemed to calm her quite a bit. Matt also stayed back with us and helped in some of the more difficult moments of the procedures we had to go through. After finally getting her sedated enough to look into her throat, the doctors pulled a bristle out of her throat from the brush that I had used to clean the grill with. It was such a fluke thing that caused her such great pain. It was really crazy. I tried to take a picture of what it looks like in comparison to a quarter. It is blurry, but it will give you some idea of what it looks like and how long it was.

There were some really scary moments obviously, but there were also some almost funny moments as well. They gave Kenzie Catamine to calm down so they could calm her down and get the other sedative in her. Basically, Catamine is a derivative of PCP, so Kenzie was high as a kite. She reverted back to believing she was in the pool and held her breath and moved her hand back and forth like she was swimming. It was quite funny to see her enjoying herself on that ER bed with all of the lines, monitor cords and oxygen lines coming from her. This of course was interspersed with her yelling (very slowly) in terror "MMMOOOMMMYYYY!!"

I really am not sure I could have made it without my freind Matt there. He and I got to know each other when we were college at Carl Albert State College (Chuck Albert). We both were relatively new in our life in Christ and found great community and accountability together. Much of the work that we do in the Mancave in MA now is based on the life and friendship in Christ that Matt. myself and our other friends shared. When we in college and I was studying jounalism, I often made fun (lovingly of course) of Matt's pursuit of being a nurse. I even convinced him to get his new Bible imprinted with the name "Nursey Boy". However, as I watched how God had created Matt to help people like he does, it was obvious that Matt was obeying the leading of the Spirit. We would often have discussions when he was early in his career as a nurse and I was a new Youth Minister that if I had a bad day, a parent may be upset, but if he had a bad day, people died. Matt was always quick to remind me that there were eternal consequences in what I did with people, he only helped keep them from those eternal consequences for as long as possible. I say all of this to say it was amazing to have a skilled nurse and professional like Matt there Monday night. However, it was better to have a friend like Matt there.

Thank you everyone who was praying for her and for us. Matt's wife Angie kept everyone updated on Twitter about what was happening and I had many people ask about how Kenzie was doing and tell me they were praying for her and us. Thank you all!!!