Gus' Big Adventure!

Hello, friends!

There are a lot of great things about having a pet. The unconditional love is great. Most pets are super cute. Really, it's mostly good stuff. However, there is one thing that makes having a "free range" pet difficult... there's always a chance they'll run away. 

Gus had quite the adventure last week. Tortoises are naturally exploratory animals. They love to walk around and find just the right spot to dig a little hole and burrow in for a nap. Honestly, it's pretty fun to watch. Because we have him in a relatively small enclosure inside (it's not tiny but I'm sure he wouldn't mind more space...) while the weather is nice, we've been letting him roam around outside for 15-30 minutes once or twice a day. He'll usually make his way towards the back of our yard and hole up until it's time to go back inside. You can tell he's not the happiest about going back inside because he never kicks his legs when we're holding him to take him outside but he's ALWAYS kicking his legs to try to escape our grip when we take him back inside.  

On Tuesday afternoon, Gus decided to go for an adventure during his time outside. I had my eyes on him (as normal) so there wasn't any big concern. Based on the surveillance footage from our doorbell camera, there were about 4 minutes when I wasn't watching him because I was talking to Megan and helping get Phoebe inside. During those 4 minutes, he made a break for it and when I went back to look for him, he was gone.  

Usually, he heads to the right, where there is plenty of chain link fence and high rock walls to keep him on our property. He'll try to climb up the rock walls but it's just too steep for him and we can keep tabs on him pretty well. However, the left side of our backyard has no chain link fence and a lower rock wall that is a little less steep. Guess which way he went on Tuesday...

As I was frantically looking around and calling his name (as if he'd actually come to me), I saw that he could have gone one of 3 ways. He could have made a break for the front yard. The gate was closed but maybe he found a hole and was out to explore the world. A second option was that he climbed the rock wall and was heading towards our neighbors. As I was looking around, I discovered a third option: there was a little hole underneath our shed from when we used to have a groundhog in the neighborhood and he could have burrowed under there. 

Megan thought that he was under the shed, so Tuesday night, while she took the kids to scouts, I took everything out of the shed and started tearing up the floorboards. 

Friends, this was a very delicate operation! On the one hand, I wanted to work quickly. On the other hand, I was swinging and axe at the floorboards. If Gus was under there, I didn't want to accidentally cut him in half. I was very tense with each swing. Eventually, it got too dark to see anything and I called it a night. Megan let all our neighbors know we were looking for Gus and I posted on Nextdoor before heading to bed, ready to take the next day off so I could finish the shed job. 

The next morning, before starting demolition again, I went to my neighbor with the fence and asked if I could poke around his backyard to see if I could find Gus. When I went back there, I knew I wouldn't have any luck. The grass was too high and there were too many places for Gus to hide. If he was back there, I wasn't going to find him. I had to hope that he was under the shed. 

I'll pause here and note how geography affects timing. My parents have a tortoise in California. He's an outdoor tortoise and sometimes they don't see him for a few weeks or a few months but they don't worry about it because they know he'll turn up. Why? Because they live in Southern California where it never gets below freezing. Tortoises aren't built for sub-freezing temperatures like we have in Nebraska in the winter. I knew that if we didn't find him Gus by November, our best hope is that he found a new home but what was more likely was that he froze to death. Not a great thought... 

Back to the shed. My friend from scouts offered to come over and help me tear up the rest of the shed floor, so we spent the rest of the morning doing that. We tore up everything but alas, there was no Gus. (we did find a possum skeleton though, so I guess that's something...) As a thank you, I offered to take him to lunch and since we finished right when Jonah finished preschool, He and Megan joined us for lunch. 

We were in the parking lot of the Chick-Fil-A, about to head home when Megan got a notification from our video doorbell. Our neighbor's granddaughter found Gus in their front yard and had brought him home!!! Even though looking in their backyard didn't yield any fruit, apparently telling my neighbor that Gus was missing was what we needed to bring him home! 

After making a fool of myself dancing in a Chick-Fil-A parking lot, we headed home to recover Gus. Both Megan and I gave him a stern talking talking to but we were happy he was home. Once we put him back in his box he started clawing at the walls. It's pretty obvious to me that he'd rather be outside, which makes me conflicted but for now, he's still with us. 

Luke 15 is Jesus telling a 3 parables about how great it is to find what is lost. The most famous of these parables is the Prodigal Son but after finding Gus, I now have a brand new appreciation for the parable of the woman and the lost coin. The woman swept the whole house to find her coin then celebrated with her friends. I tore up a shed floor to find Gus and when we found him, the family went to a pumpkin patch to celebrate. =0). 

Have an excellent day! 

~Adam

The Power of Prayer...

Hello, friends! 

Last week, I wrote about processing loss and how Jonah was doing with the loss of his friend. It was such a blessing to see the outpouring of love and support from everyone. Since I started blogging in 2011, last week's post was the most viewed post ever. Apparently, something about processing lost resonated with people. From the bottom of my heart, I thank you. 

If the past few days have shown me anything, it's that there is power in prayer. I'm not sure that I could have said that with all integrity a week and a half ago but I have more evidence of it now. 

One of the things that I didn't mention when I first told the story was the prayer part. After Jonah's friend drowned, he was on life support, functionally brain dead but being kept alive so that organ recipients could be found. While we were on the way home from daycare, Jonah and I prayed that his friend would miraculously be healed. It was a short prayer but it brought up a lot in me. 

Jesus said that if you have the faith of a mustard seed, you can tell a mountain to be thrown into the sea and it will be done. I've read all the Bible stories about people being brought back from the dead. In that moment of praying with Jonah for his friend, I wanted to have the faith of a mustard seed; I knew that I didn't. It wasn't quite a crisis of faith but it was a humbling experience for sure. 

Fast forward to last Wednesday. I posted about Jonah and was immediately flooded with comments and messages from people offering their condolences and saying that they were praying for our family and for Jonah. It was comforting and heartwarming to say the least. 

The next day, Thursday morning, was another daycare day. After the rough Tuesday we had, I wasn't sure what to expect. Friends, I have no problem telling you that Thursday morning felt like a miracle. Jonah had no problem getting into the car and there was no crying on his way to daycare. When I walked him into daycare, in the lobby was a collage of photos of his friend. Jonah looked at the collage, found a few photos where he was in there too, smiled, and walked right into the cafeteria. I honestly felt like crying for the 3rd time in 2 weeks, except tears of joy (I didn't). 

At drop off today, Jonah had a bit of a rough time but it was better than last Tuesday. It's possible that last Thursday was a fluke and he was just excited about the donut that we got on our way to daycare. Still, I'm choosing to believe that he was helped by all the prayers of friends, family, and loved ones. 

What's wild is that I still need these reminders of the power of prayer. I've experienced the power of prayer in my own life in different ways. I've experienced physical healing, both on the giving and receiving end. I've seen demons cast out and words of prophecy given that were spot on and only could be from the LORD. I know that prayer works. I'm so glad that I get reminders like this every now and then. 

Have an excellent day! 

~Adam

Processing loss...

Hello, friend!

Last week, when I went to go pick up Jonah from daycare, the woman who owns the daycare informed me that one of the students from Jonah's class died over the weekend in a pool accident. The student's older brother came to tell Jonah's class about it so everyone knew. Obviously, any death is a tragedy but this one hit especially close to home because it was a friend of Jonah's. I don't think that I had met the kid but I knew the name because Jonah always identified him as one of his friends. 

Taking Jonah home from school that day was pretty tough. I wasn't sure of how Jonah would be processing everything. He was just a baby when his great grandmother died. Our pet fish, Fluffy, died last summer but Jonah didn't think too much of it. We had some friends from church who had one of their little ones die last year but Jonah didn't know him well. This was really the first time that someone close to Jonah would die. 

As we rode home, Jonah was pretty open in talking about things in a matter of fact way. He wanted to know if each ambulance had his friend in it and had some of the normal questions. I almost lost it when he asked if his friend was going to see his great grandma in heaven and again when he said that he didn't want his friend to go to heaven because he wanted to see him at school. As someone who hadn't cried since 2021, things got really close. 

We finally hit critical mass on Thursday, the next day Jonah was set to go to daycare. He had his first day of preschool the day before so he was crying the entire way to daycare, yelling, "I don't want to go to daycare! I want to go to preschool!" I know at least part of that was because of how much fun he had the day before but I also believe that he was sad about his friend. After dropping him off at daycare (while he was still crying), I couldn't get all the way back to the car before breaking down. It was too much. 

On Monday, the daycare had a ceremony to plant a tree in the student's honor. We asked Jonah if he wanted to go but he said that he didn't need to go because the tree was to remember his friend but he already remembered his friend so there was no need to see it. #KidLogicFTW. Yesterday was another tough day a drop off. The whole way there, Jonah cried about not wanting to see the tree. I offered to go in to see the tree with him but he was a no go on that. I dropped him off crying again, then cried myself, the second time in less than a week. 

Looking at it now, the thing that evokes so much emotion in me is that Jonah is hurting but he isn't sure how to process it. On top of the crying on the way to daycare, he's also ad trouble falling asleep. He's also perfectly fine for a whole bunch of the time. When I pick him up from daycare, he's been in a good mood. It sucks that my boy is hurt and there's nothing I can do to help make it better. I can't bring back his friend... 

Friends, if you are the praying sort, please be praying. Pray for the family of the child who died, that God will bring them the comfort they need. Please pray for Megan and me as we try to help Jonah process. Pray for Jonah that he will be able to process his emotions in a healthy way and know that he is loved. 

Have an excellent day!

~Adam

PS: I thought about posting some photos of Jonah and his friend here but decided against it as a way of respecting the child and his family. I don't know them and don't know if they want a photo of their kiddo out in the world. Just know that he and Jonah looked like they were having fun. =0)

Bellevue Kickoff!!!

Hello, friends!

Last night Bellevue had its kickoff event. We decided to go with the classics: Chick-Fil-A nuggets and Uno. =0). 

Our start was a little bit hectic. I picked up the food at 5, thinking we were starting at 5:30. Our student intern Jill called me at 5:05, asking where I was. It was then that I realized that we'd changed the time to 5 last week. When I got to Bellevue and started setting up, I was worried because no one was there. It turns out that Jill had changed the time back to 5:30 and hadn't told me. Whoops! 

When 5:30 rolled around we had a few students show up. Jill was excited because none of them were athletes. Increasing non-athlete participation was a goal of hers for this year, so this felt like a win. We'd ordered for 25 and only had about half a dozen there, so we opted for a divide and conquer. Jill stayed with the students who showed up and learned more about them, connecting and such. Kaylee, one of Jill's teammates, and I took the big dish of Chick-Fil-A cookies and some InterVarsity flyers around the student center, offering cookies to folk eating dinner and inviting them to next week's Bible Study. Most of the people just took a cookie, thanked us, and went back to their conversation. However, we did me Princess and Kimberly, two students from the DRC and Kenya. They were looking for community on campus and came by later to hang out with us for a bit. 

All in all, it was a great event. Jill was encouraged, Kaylee was a huge help, and we got to meet some new students. Woot! 

These NSO events are a good reminder for me that we all have different expectations and that ultimately, God is the one with the plan. My biggest fear for these events is that no one will show up and the student leaders will be disappointed. Attendance was considerably lower than what we were hoping for but it ended up working out for the best. Because there were fewer students, Jill was able to connect more with them on an individual level. Because there were leftover cookies, we were able to go into the caf and meet Princess and Kimberly. Because the volleyball team had a match (they won, btw), Kaylee had space to step up. God does his thing, and that's OK.

Have an excellent day! 

~Adam