Friday, March 21st ... 2008

Ah, the day was a beauty.
Well, a beauty for Salem ... we weren't being deluged in rain, the sun was peeking at us, and I had the opportunity to drive one of the vans in the morning from the rental spot to the gym parking lot.
One of the vans was set up to tow, which was important because the majority of our personal belongings, tools, tents, and kitchen gear was loaded inside a lovely trailer donated for our use by Jerome Prairie Bible Church's Youth Ministry. Sweet!

I had been asked to speak one of the nights around the campfire and had soon come to realize that the very issue I was personally struggling with would be what I would lay bare for my entire team to experience as well.
Between Michael and Marty Trammell I had been taught pretty well in the art of presentation giving and I had no desire to deliver something that wasn't the best I could make it.
So ...
I had the components of E.T.H.I.C.A.L. emailed to me (and an excellent PowerPoint was also sent along ~ yea!). I spent hours researching on the net for supporting info (including lots of quality time at Barna.org) ... I also spent a great deal of time delving even deeper into my most recent experience ... how it impacted my life, how it had been impacting others, and surrounded all that with additional prayer.

I was a bit short in the ink department so I reasoned that this being a college sanctioned event it was cool to use their printers to print off my notes and info I'd amassed.
I emailed myself at the college ... then I forwarded my insurance papers ... and then I waited for two hours and checked to see if there were any "mailer-demon" messages ... not a one ... so for good measure I re-emailed my notes one more time. This took place Thursday night ... Friday morning just before I walked out the door I rechecked my main email and still there were no undeliverable mail notifications (why it never occurred to me to check the account I was sending to still has not ... well ... occurred to me, lol).

So there I am in the computer lab.
We're about ready to leave.
I've hiked down the hill from the gym and have gotten online to print my pages off ... and ... they're not there.
Um ...
The insurance document I forwarded was there ... but those pages were not.
And I realized that at this point it too close to exit time to be able to get home to stick it on a thumb drive (oh, why did I not do that either??) get back to the school and print it off.
Bummer.
But I was determined to make it work ... and as time rolled on it became apparent to me that Father was determined to make me open up and share more about me then I had planned on (or was even comfortable with).

And then we were off, and thus began the trip that would reconnect me with some old friends and bind me with LOTS of new ones.
My van was the smallest one .. there were only eight of us for the trips down and back ... nice and roomy!
Aubrey and Tyler, Caleb, Jon, John, Keith, Andy (in last name alpha order ;*) and I were heading off towards our first overnighter in Corning (and the first of MANY In-N-Out food stops to come!) ...

(continued on tomorrow :*)