Over the weekend, we returned to Pine Bluff, Arkansas, where Aaron and I used to teach orchestra in the Pine Bluff school district. We met a couple of former youth group members for lunch at McDonalds. Laura, the young lady on the left, used to hold Sarah, and now Sarah is carrying around Laura's little girl.
Sunday morning we attended Immanuel Baptist Church, the first church where Aaron served on staff. We got our start into full time ministry because this church was willing to take a chance on a guy with a young family.
More of our former students drove down to meet us at church, and it was good to see their growing family again!
When we weren't visiting with former students, we were hanging out with former colleagues. When we taught school in Pine Bluff, we enjoyed an amazing group of mentors who taught us more about teaching than we ever learned in college.
Now these friends function more as adopted grandparents and encourage our kids to do things like catch frogs in the creek in the backyard...
stuff teddy bears down the laundry chute...
sign Dr. Bill's cast...
roast marshmallows over the grill...
to make delicious s'mores...
and they were good...
slide down the stairs...
push Dr. Bill around in his wheelchair (or ride around in it themselves)...
and just generally be goofy.
Staying in the home of life-long-learners amazed me around every corner. What great friends they have become. Pulling out of that driveway was hard.
4 comments:
I have a bad habit of looking at pictures on your blog before I read (I do always read - trust me). I think this is the same quirky part of me that looks at magazines backwards and reads book acknowledgements and author biographies first, even if they are located in the back of the book.
I write all that to say that, when I got to the frog-collecting photo, I was aghast, as it appeared to be some type of new-fangled coffee drink from Starbucks. I was SO relieved to learn it was just frogs in froggy water. :-)
Love,
Kayla
I love the stair sliding pictures. Earlier in the week our neighbors got a new trampoline. We ended up with the box. I was in another part of the house and heard a crazy noise and crash. I came running to find our kids tobogganing down the stairs (wearing bicycle helmets) in the box... sweet memories for sure:)
Kayla,
Looking back at the frog picture, the muddy water DOES look like some milky coffee concoction. And I always read the book acknowledgements first, too :-)
Gayly,
Boxes are such fun. Why do we spend so much money for the things inside boxes?!?
Love,
Joanna
Those are two of the best women in the world, as you well know! I am incredibly grateful that they helped shape me into the person that I am today!
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