Well, we are here, in beautiful North Carolina - the Outer Banks, or OBX, as the locals refer to it. What a gorgeous part of the world. We snagged a beach house in the off season and I'm sitting on the 3rd floor of the house facing the ocean, listening to the waves come in. Every day has been hot and humid and I'm just soaking it all in knowing that we'll go back to much cooler weather.
A few highlights so far as I want to write them down before I forget!
Day 1 - We left on the actual day of our 20th anniversary, Sept. 1, seemed kind of significant! We drove 9 hours the first day (well, we didn't actually drive that long, it took that long with all the stops for bathroom breaks! Our kids have really small bladders we found out......). I must point out, I made a real effort to not spend a dollar on restaurants on the way down. I had packed a cooler that got us almost the whole way down. We did end up stopping for coffee a couple of times and then once we bought some burgers and fries, and another time nuggets, but we only drank water, no pop. So we did really well as far as the budget went. That night we stopped in Virginia where we did stay at a hotel, but we had budgeted for that night so it wasn't a surprise. RM took just me out for dinner with some money we had received as a gift and that as so fun! The kids swam in the hotel pool that night and the next morning. We picked a hotel that came with a hot breakfast and the kids filled up for the next long leg ahead of us.
Day 2 - We drove another long time, over 6 hours (with more pee breaks!) to a little town called Swoope, Virginia, where we visited a famous farm called PolyFace. This farm is run by a well-known man in both secular and Christian circles named Joel Salatin. He farming techniques are really unique and what helps to make him famous is that he writes and writes about them. His books and articles are everywhere. He got sick and tired of what he calls "concentration camp" animals. He also thinks the way farming is down now, in terms of mass production, is bad not just for the animals, but for us as we eat the sick animals that are laden with antibiotics. So he lets his chickens be chickens and his pigs be pig in as natural an environment as possible. The unique result is that his farm doesn't smell! Well, the pigs did a little, but that is hard to get away from! It wasn't a beautiful farm, esthetically, as Salatin is all about the practical. He just wants to grow good meat. When you arrive you are allowed to take self-guided tours. Anyone can show up and just walk around. So we did just that, taking tons of pictures (which he also allows as he wants everyone to farm the way he farms). It was brutally hot, so we didn't stay long. We ended up eating out of the cooler again and then nearly got lost getting out of the winding roaded countryside. So pretty though driving through the valley with the mountains all around.
That afternoon we drove about 3 more hours to North Carolina where we stopped to visit a friend of mine from university and her family. The whole drive down we listened to stories on cd like Les Miserables, Silas Marner, Billy Bishop - all great classics. We nearly caved and bought a dvd player for our van, but it would have been so expensive, so we just used what we already had and it was such good listening. We were all engaged.
We pulled into my friend's house and her 4 kids were outside waiting for us. I hadn't seen them since they were all either babies or little tots and there they were, big and all grown up, 7 years later. I couldn't help it as tears welled up. My friend, who I had known since we were both single and had been in each other's weddings, came out to greet us with her husband and I just hugged her crying. I felt like a Grandma who hadn't ever met her grandchildren and who felt so proud! Stacey and I have a special spiritual relationship, too, as I led her in her first Bible study when we were on campus together. That was how the special bond was formed. It was so fun to reconnect.
We stayed two nights at her place. It couldn't have been any shorter, there was so much to talk about! We left as new best friends with their children and we absolutely plan on not letting 7 years go by again. Such a worthwhile visit. (Just as an interesting note, she was the one who first introduced me to Dave Ramsey and the whole debt-reduction idea years ago.......)
Day 3 - From there, we travelled east to another friend's house where we spent another night (saving on hotels and food, yay, bonus!) This family was also very special, though we had only met the Dad prior to this trip. RM had first met Jason at a conference he had gone to called "The Master's Plan for Fatherhood". That trip changed RM's life. He came back so inspired to be a new kind of Dad, one who led us spiritually, who, like Job, was a priest, prophet and king. A priest in that he dealt with sin in the family and wouldn't look aside when he saw something in one of our kids (or even in me!). A prophet, in that he spoke the words of God into our family, from Scripture, leading and guiding us. A king, in that he led us faithfully through good times and bad, even into battle if need be. At that conference he made fast friends with Jason and another man, Rick, who both offered up their homes if we ever came down again. Sure enough, we did and we met Rick's family and stayed at their home so many years ago. This time, we stayed at Jason's and met his family for the first time. Another wonderful visit, connecting with their kids like we'd known them our whole lives.
Jason is a church planter with the National Center for Family-Integrated Churches. We love these people. They believe the church has forgotten God's purpose and instruction for the family. Scott Brown, the director of the NCFIC, has recently put out another book, and in it he describes that "God created the family as an important element in the outworking of His eternal purpose.....First, God created the family to give structure and order to the human beings that He made in His image. Second, the family provides the essential labor of teaching and preparation of children for churches, communities, cultures, and nations. Third, God created the family in order to pass the gospel from one generation to the next. Finally, God designed the family to be a living demonstration of various aspects of the glory of the gospel and the embodiment of biblical truths." Scott goes on to say that today "we are in need of family formation, or rather, a reformation of biblical family life." But there are so many attacks against the family by the devil. Why? Scott says it is not because Satan hates love and family, but because he "hates the gospel of Jesus Christ. A mangled marriage communicates a mangled gospel; an unloving selfish husband declares a loveless faith and lies about Christ's love for the church; an un-submissive wife represents the falsehood of an antinomian church; a rebellious child images a disobedient individual child of God. The devil is on a mission, hell-bent to destroy the glory of God and His everlasting kingdom wherever it exists, so he aims at the most important target: the gospel." Basically, the church is healthier if the family is healthier. The world is blessed when the family is working the way God planned.
As we left, Jason handed us a book of 500 years of Christian teaching on the family by 56 authors from the Puritans to Calvin to modern day authors. This is lost teaching nowadays, completely forgotten authors that no one knows about. He also gave us another small book by J.C. Ryle, another author from the 1800s, that knew how to raise children and wrote a wonderful book on that topic. Between the two books, we've been reading a segment each night with our children and praying together, singing together, calling out to God to use our family in some way, to free us from our bondage so that we can be used. We long for this freedom, not just for ourselves, but for all families, not just financial, but spiritual bondage that we see in so many families. We plan on buying these two books and passing them out to everyone we know.
Yes, we're on a beach. Yes, we're having fun, but this time away has been so great, to talk without distractions, nearly around the clock, about what we can do to achieve this freedom, what we can do to be used in some way, to dream, to be re-inspired about the gift of family. Spending time with those families was just what we needed. That was a vacation for the soul.
Well, a long post.....I'm not even half-way done, but enough for now.
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