This weekend I went up to Milwaukee to attend the birthday party of a good friend's husband. (Way to be 25 Frank Kerous. You wear a quarter of a century taller than any other man with whom I am acquainted.) Emily Kerous, formerly Rivere, is a friend of mine from the good ol' days when I used to hang out with Fremders. (Fremders: those people who attended Fremd High School.) She is about the only one left of that gang with whom I keep in touch on a regular basis. This weekend was one of seeing people I hadn't in a long while and of course meeting some new ones. There were interesting experiences involved in this weekend's trip to Milwaukee. Some funny, one prayer inducing, and one incredibly memorable.
Ann Rust is a friend of Emily's - they were in small group together at Willow a while ago - and she and I drove up together. Ann Rust is fun; and she is a ceramics teacher in Naperville, which of course adds to how fun Ann Rust is. Anyone who can turn a blob of clay into something other than a blob of clay gets at least "fun" in my book. But Ann Rust was rather ill feeling this weekend. Asthma is not Ann's friend. It makes her lungs hurt. On the way home we thought she was going to have to go to the ER but she avoided that. I need to call her today and see how she's feeling. Hopefully she got into the Dr. and she's doing better. We went up early, as Em had invited the two of us to go to church with her and FK before the party. Harvest Community Church that is.
Before the service started someone came up behind me and tousled my hair. "Hey kiddo!" was his greeting. I turned around and he gasped and said all on inhale, "You are not who I thought you were, I'm so sorry." Funny. I quickly learned that his name was Brandon and assured him that though I was not whomever he thought I was, I didn't mind all that much that he'd just touched my head. After the service I went to see who he thought I was and story of all stories, he is a senior at ASU. So we got to chat a little about how much I loved it there and miss it and random other stuff. It never ceases to amaze me how much I love meeting new people.
The service we got to see at HCC was a baptism service, which was really neat. I always enjoy seeing how other churches present baptisms. There were about 4 people that were baptized that night. They showed pictures of each person prior to them getting into the baptismal and then when it came time for their turn, a recorded version of themselves gave their testimony. Iolanda (pronounced Yolanda) was displayed and next to her name was the scripture reference Jeremiah 29:11-13. Emily leaned over to me and said, "Hey, she has your verse." I said something cute like "She really should give that back." Her testimony playing over the sound system was too much for her to take, Iolanda, standing in the water was crying at the sound of her own voice. She shared with the congregation how she came to know Christ. An abusive home, unplanned pregnancy, and a life full of guilt. For some reason I was crying with her. I didn't know why. Until I heard these words. "About six months after I started following Christ's roadmap for my life I was diagnosed with a degenerative disease called Lupus." That was it. I knew what it was and why I was so moved by her story. Emily's arms embraced my now sobbing frame and as she held me she once again stated, this time, with the understating and connection my tears conveyed, "She has your verse."
Back in college, in 2004 when blogging was hardly even a thing yet, I was here. Blogging before blogging meant anything to anyone. You can look in the archives for my past writings, but it was much more like a journal in the past. When we started fundraising, I messed around with the idea of launching something new for this new phase of our journey but actually hated that idea. I am a sum of all of my life and so much of it is here already. So I'm keeping it here. At least for now.
My main focus these days is blogging about our newest journey into the bizarre and wonderful world of gestational surrogacy. Posts dated 2013 and forward will trend heavily toward that journey. I don't promise everything I write will be about though. There might be other things that sneak in occasionally.
Please come along our journey with us. As the saying goes, "The more, the merrier!"
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