The Rear View Mirror

We made it back safely yesterday. Ben and Sarah have already begun rehearsals with their summer team.

Thank you for all of your prayers as our team traveled. It was truly appreciated by all of us.

Philip

We are just passing the highway 25 and 276 interchange up above Furman
in Travelers Rest. We’ll pull into the Office Annex where the Ministry Team office is.

We are leaving Kingsport right now.

Our host sent us in to the store and told us to get whatever we want. We’ll be making Sundaes tonight.

We just finished our last service in Kingsport, TN.

I thought I would blog an entry that would give some links to some of the highlights of the tour. One of the neatest places I got to see was the tour of the Quebecor World plant. The size of it was pretty staggering. I had never been to Chicago before this trip, so actually staying downtown and experiencing the city was really neat. I also think seeing the Rockwell Collins office was fascinating. Seeing the Oaklahoma City bombing memorial was eye opening. I remembered some of the news coverage from when it happened, but never understood how much damage was done. Read the rest of this entry »

I’m spending this weekend with my uncle and aunt and my two cousins in Murfreesboro, the land of my birth. The team dropped me off at Montgomery Bell Academy, an all boy prep school where my uncle works. I had never been there before, so I was glad to see it. On the way home I stopped by the Bill Rice Ranch to see some new sound equipment that had just been installed. This morning I went to my cousin’s soccer game. Unfortunately, They didn’t win, but I got some pictures I’ll put up later.

Last weekend we were in Memphis, TN. Saturday night we went to a picnic with Ben’s church, which is where we were at Sunday morning. The picnic is an annual deal the night before “Friend Day,” which is a special Sunday once a year. They have lunch after the morning service right there at the church. Several of the guys from the church stay up all Saturday night cooking the BBQ pork for Sunday. The cooking is done out at Mr. Ebner’s work, which is a large MCI fiber optic switching station. Since they are going to be out there all night, they have a picnic Saturday for supper.

Mr. Ebner took me in and gave me a tour of the MCI building. Each fiber optic strand, which is thinner then a human hair, can handle over a million telephone conversations.

We stayed in the Memphis area Monday and Tuesday, because we were at two schools, so we had a chance to tour downtown. The first day we stayed around Peabody Place, which gets its name from the famous Peabody Hotel. Everyday the Duck Master marches in several ducks to the fountain, where they spend the day. Click here to see the history of the duck march. We got a tour of the Orpheum Theater and walked through the Police Museum on Beale Street. As we were walking back to Peabody Place, we ran into the Director of Police Services, Larry A. Godwin.

The second day we went to Mud Island and walked the length of the Lower Mississippi River. Every step we took was equivelant to about a mile. There is also a museum there about the history surrounding the Mississippi. Later, we drove by Lorraine Motel, where Martin Luther King Jr. was shot. The motel has been turned into the National Civil Rights Museum.

We went back to the Peabody Hotel, so we would get a chance to see the ducks march at 5:00. Jon and I ran over to a BBQ place called Charles Vergos Rendezvous and ordered take out. The ribs are charcoal broiled and the last picture in the Memphis gallery is the open cooker. They are a dry rub rib, but they put a special seasoning on, and the sauce, which is sweet, comes on the side. Jon and I both thought that those ribs were the best we’ve had all tour. The seasoning made each bite of the meat explode with flavor. We both ate a full slab, but it didn’t leave you feeling overly stuffed. If I’m back in Memphis, I’d definitely try to get back there.

We’re back near Memphis for the Thursday night service, so we stopped by one of Ben’s old haunts, Jerry’s Snow Cones.

I’m sorry I’ve been so delinquent recently in posting. I have quite a bit I’d like to share, but let me just start by posting these pictures. I’ll explain them in more detail in my next post. Click here to see the gallery.

Sarah let us know the other day that Pastor Ault passed away on Saturday. Please continue to pray for his wife, and the rest of his family.

The pottery you see is original Jon Eoute ceramics. They were given to a friend of his, who he worked with at Camp Chetek. (Click on the jar to see Erin and me.) Ministry Team Jon and I stayed with her family Thursday night. We had a lot of fun staying up to talk about all sorts of things. I had some photos of Jon at the pottery wheel that I pulled up to show them. It was actually very funny, because Jon called to talk to Erin while we were all sitting in the living room, so she handed me the phone and I answered. Jon had been the one who had told me we would be at their house, so I assumed he would know who was talking, but it caught him off guard, and he didn’t really know for a while. They will be up to Greenville to see their other daughter, Christine, walk at graduation this May.

Thursday we had a drive from Palestine* (Arkansas, that is) to Tupelo, MS, so we swung through Memphis and met up with Ben’s parents for lunch. Well, since it was our first meal in Memphis, you can imagine what type of restaurant we ate at. . . BBQ.

We went to the original location of Corky’s BBQ on Poplar Avenue. I was surprised to see how small the eating area was. Ben said it actually used to be even smaller, and people would come and wait for two hours just to get in. My dad is a fan of their dry rub ribs, so I called him up to tell him I had just eaten some. He told me that he had eaten lunch with a friend of his a day or so earlier and the original Corky’s had come up in the conversation as a place my dad should go to. In case you were wondering, yes, there was a wood pile out back.

*That is a bit of an irony in and of itself, since the drama we do takes place in Jerusalem.

In mid March, we were in Clio, IA with pastor Keith Ault. We all went to his house for supper, which was just across the street from the church, and as we crossed he joked with us that in Clio, if they see three cars on the road that it’s considered a traffic jam. During the meal, he explained that he had recently been diagnosed with lung cancer. It had come as a shock to them, because he had never smoked in his life. In devotions today, Sarah brought to our attention the prayer request that had gone out about him:

From Bud Bierman (Alumni Association)
Please pray for Rev. Keith Ault (’60 grad), who was diagnosed with cancer several months ago. The Aults arrived in Greenville last Friday night to live with their son, and within an hour, Keith went into the hospital in critical condition.

He was very kind and gracious to us, and being with him and at his church was the type of Ministry Team experience you hope you get at every church.

Well, I couldn’t let Michael get away with meeting all the interesting people while in Washington, so Jon and I stayed with Arkansas State Senator Kim Hendren. Senator Kim had just returned from a ninety day session in Little Rock. We talked late into the night about Arkansas politics as well as his many business ventures. His brother-in-law is Asa Hutchinson, who’s a BJ grad.

The church is located in Gravette, AR, which is in the far northwest corner of the state. Wal-Mart’s home office, which employs 18,000 people is only a few miles away in Bentonville, AR. Senator Kim’s brother, a judge, was one of Sam Walton’s best friends. They played tennis together almost everyday for years. Senator Kim told us a funny anecdote about a customer service experience he had. Read the rest of this entry »

The following image should open correctly if you have Quicktime installed on your computer. I stitched together nine images from the OK City Memorial to create the panoramic image. The larger panorama will allow you to zoom in and see more detail.

Click which size to view: Small (488 KB), Medium (1.7 MB), Large (3.7 MB).

A couple days ago we had a chance to go down town Oklahoma City, and see the memorial at the bombing site. There’s a museum in the Journal Record Building, but you are not allowed to take pictures there, so the only pictures in the gallery are from the outside portion of the memorial.

The exhibit inside is one of the best museum exhibits I’ve been to. It’s self-guided, and the first portion explains which Federal Agencies had offices there, and what a typical day would be like in the office building.
Read the rest of this entry »

My friend Michael Collins took a break from school this week to run up to Washington, DC and work on our nation’s issues of nation security and civil liberties. This is through the Fund for American Studies (TFAS) Annual Conference. Check out his blog here.

This is certainly not a sight you’ll see every day. Karlyn now knows that she’s not alone in this world. Albeit, their names are spelled slightly different, but phonetically it all comes out pretty much the same.

From left to right: Carlon, Karlyn, and Carlen

The other night we were at a social with the teens from a church outside of Oklahoma City, OK. The adults were watching the weather pretty carefully, because there was a forecast of heavy storms possibly spawning tornados. I went outside, and you could hear this far off eerie wail of a siren. I looked around and you could see in the distance the wall cloud and the lightning was spectacular. You could see the bolts of lightning run horizontal to the ground. I realize this picture is very bad technically, but I didn’t have a tripod, and the neighborhood had quite a bit of light in the foreground.

Click here to see the news story about the tornado that touched down that evening.