Put Me In Coach ~ I'm Ready To Play!

My child has always loved baseball. It could have been all that time at the ball park watching Oneonta play, it could be The Sandlot (one of the greatest movies ever made) that has seemingly been on repeat everyday this week, or it could just be that he loves it!

Check out this windup!



Just a few miles up the road in Charleston is the Minor League baseball team the West Virginia Power. Yesterday on a whim we decided to go to the game. We ordered the tickets online and went for the best available (at only $8.oo a ticket - wow) and ended up in the presence of Minor League Baseball Royalty!

Here is Davis at our seats in "section 107 - next to heaven"



Matt went on the adventure of finding supper and Davis and I got to know the family beside us. You know, if I am going to be sitting beside someone for that amount of time, we might as well be friends. I found out they were from Parkersburg and the guy next to me (their son-in-law) was visiting from Pittsburg.

Here is Davis saying "batter up!"



A few minutes before the game began a man came in to sit in the row in front of us. He had a wrought iron side table, a bag FULL of bread and signs and was welcoming us to "section 107 - next to heaven." We all just smiled and he introduced himself as "the toast man" The guy beside me from Pittsburg went CRAZY!!!! "I have heard of this guy! This is SO awesome"

Here is a picture of his bag:



Here is the story of "the toast man" He has season tickets to the West Virginia Power games and never misses one. He does "homework" every night on the opposing team and knows where they went to college, their era, their batting average and what games they have choked in and he is not afraid to use these things.

But you may be asking: Why is he called "the Toast Man" Well - here goes. He brings a TOASTER to the game and when an opposing player strikes out he yells "T-O-A-S-T! You are toast!" and throws toast into the crowd!

He has cheers for every WV Power player by playing off their name like:
I say Captain you say Morgan: Captain Morgan
I say Shake 'Em you Say Baker: Shake 'Em Baker
Jesus, Jesus, Jesus is on the loose (that would be the spanish form of the word, not the Christian)
Jose can You'll See (like the Star Spangled Banner)

But the best part was what he would say to the other team. The Savannah Sand Gnats (the opposing team) had two players with the last name Harris. Every time either came up to bat he had the whole place shouting "The other Harris is better, the other Harris is better" or "If I choked in a game against Greenville like you did I would really try to put that out of my mind"

In other words, we were in the presence of a full time heckler and he was GOOD at what he did! Here is a picture of "THE Toast Man"



Here is a picture of Davis with his toast. After "the toast man" threw toast into the crowd he would chant "Don't eat the toast, you don't know where its been"



We had a great time, we won the game and on the way home we decided we have to go back to "section 107 next to heaven" very soon

When I got home I googled "the toast man" and was SHOCKED at what I found: he is on Wikipedia, Facebook and Youtube! He is a star! But my most AMAZING find: he is the assistant mayor of the city of Charleston, WV!

So Friday night, we are going back to "section 107 next to heaven" for some baseball, fireworks and toast!

Interviews, Starbucks and New Friends

The first weekend in May, Matt and I went to Alpharetta, Georgia for our North American Mission Board (NAMB) interviews. Let me give you some background on Matt's job at the West Virginia Convention of Southern Baptist. His official title is The Director of Evangelism and Student Ministries. He was hired by the West Virginia Convention of Southern Baptist (and we went through extensive interviews with them) but we are actually NAMB appointed missionaries to the state of West Virginia. Very confusing I know! We had to fill out tons of paperwork with NAMB and I do mean TONS! We had to give them the names of 15 of our closest friends and then THEY had to fill out tons of paperwork. It was very extensive. When we passed that part of the interview, we received an "official invitation" to the NAMB offices to be interviewed in person.

This was one of the first things you saw as you walked into the building "The World At Our Doorstep" Below you see the heartbeat of NAMB: Sharing Christ, Starting Churches, Sending Missionaries.




From the moment we stepped on the campus we were treated as royalty. Everyone there was so nice! Everywhere we turned someone was thanking us for giving up our lives to become missionaries! Truly an amazing experience! They rolled out the red carpet for us! We ate and ate and ate! We were encouraged in our lives, marriages and ministries. It was an uplifting experience to say the least.....then we were interviewed. As many of you know....I am a worrier by nature. I had built the interview up in my mind to be something Jack Bauer would use in one of his interrogations. It was FAR from it! Our interview was two-fold. The first half was our missionary interview where we discussed our calling into missions, ministry and our own personal spiritual growth. This went REALLY well! Our interviewer was so kind and compassionate. He took the time to ask about Davis and we even talked about 24 for a little while! The second half of the interview was our ministry interview. This was the most precious time of the week! Our interviewer was Thomas Hammonds and he took this time to just encourage us! He gave Matt some very practical ministry advice and then just kept us in stitches telling funny stories.

This is a picture in the Missionary Break Room. One wall was a white board and as you can see it says Welcome Missionaries! And then each missionary candidate name is listed. The staff at the building took time to come by and pray for each of us by name! There was also couches for us to rest on, bottled water and the BEST chocolate chip cookies I might have ever tasted!







Throughout this process, we met some of the most precious people ever! We came from all over the United States (Georgia, Alabama, Seattle, Arkansas, South Carolina, North Carolina, California, Oklahoma, etc.) We all just really connected to each other and became fast friends. What was amazing was how similar our stories were. One night at supper we sat with two other couples, one from Oklahoma and the other from California. Our "ministry stories" were almost identical! Only an amazing God can bring three couples to one table to share and encourage each other!

The evening after the interviews, we were all ready to relax so we headed to Starbucks! This is a picture of Matt and Tanner at Starbucks. Tanner and his precious wife Marsha are planting a church in Boston. We just really loved getting to spend time with them. As an aside here, when we were at the SBC in Orlando it was time for the Seminary reports and after the report from Southern (Matt's alma mater) I just kind of zoned out. Then the report for Southeastern Seminary began with a video and there was Tanner! Small world!



This is Cara and I. She and her husband Matt are from San Francisco, California and he is going to be a Chaplain in the Navy. Sweet, sweet couple!!!



And this is everybody! I could go on and on about each precious person in this picture, but I won't because that is only interesting to us and them. I will just leave you with this ~ each person in this picture is doing BIG things for God and I count it a privilege to know them!

The Southern Baptist Convention

In June, Matt, Davis and I headed to Orlando, Florida for our very first Southern Baptist Convention. Here are some pictures from the trip....ENJOY!



This was lunch our very first day at the convention. You can see we had to eat in the floor. Just a few people were there.




I had to include this picture because it is so stinkin' cute!!!! That is CapriSun in there....not coffee!




This is ALL Davis wanted to do! And for those of you that know Davis...this is a BIG deal!




The picture you have all been waiting for.....Daddy in the "gobbles" Does it really get any better than this?




Mommy and Davis after swimming




This is Raleigh. He is one of Matt's college ministers for the Charleston Metro area, but more than that he is our friend! We LOVE Raleigh. He is so much fun to be with, but also such an awesome Christian. Most importantly, he thinks Davis hung the moon. The feeling is mutual as well. Davis' prayer time included "thank you God for the pool and Raleigh" on more than one occasion this week!



We decided to take a trip to DisneyQuest while in the Orlando area. You all know we are a Disney Family, but we could not bring ourselves to go to the park while in Orlando, so DisneyQuest was the next best thing. I highly recommend this if you are traveling to the area. Fun stuff. This is just one of the MANY pictures I took while we were there. I chose only this one for two reasons: 1 - I know you really don't want to see twenty pictures of us playing games, but 2 - this was so cool. it was like human pinball using the Mighty Ducks. You stood behind those duck-looking things and competed against fifteen other people. Davis came in THIRD place!!! And the other fourteen people were all adults! He was the ONLY child!




After DisneyQuest we ate at T-Rex. So awesome. It is like the Rainforest Cafe, but with Dinos. Super cool!





The restaurant is divided into different rooms, each representing different dinosaur "ages" I guess this was the frozen age.


Now let me say....it looks like we only did fun stuff and we did do A LOT of fun things, but we did actually go to the convention. I just don't think you want to see any pictures of a bunch of Southern Baptists sitting around - but I can post those if you want!!!

Father's Day 2010

Father's Day came and went without a blog post, but how could I resist posting this picture! The best Daddy in the world!

Happy Fourth of July!!!!

Let me begin by apologizing for my lack of blogging lately but I promised my mom and Doug Camp I would not blog again until I had pictures. Well, I am not the world's most computer literate blogger so I had to wait until Matt was here to post the pictures....but here goes!

Our little Mayberry (Hurricane) has a Fourth of July Parade, so we packed up the popsicles and headed over. Here are just a few pictures from the day. Fun was had and tears were shed (by me...I get so emotional when I go to things like this) What a perfect day!










We told Davis that if you wave they will throw candy.....he decided if he waved with two hands he would get double the candy!


Have a happy and safe Fourth of July!