Anita Renfroe Event

Well, due to lighting and other various issues, we don't have very many good pics from the set up or service Friday night. But, I'll share some that we have. What an awesome experience it was to lead that many people in worship. And to have the opportunity to work with Anita Renfroe. She was HILARIOUS!!! I laughed so hard, that I slobbered. :-)

Anita didn't arrive at the Hulman Center until about 6:30 (if I remember correctly)and the program started at 7p! So there wasn't much hanging out with her. She gave Kathy and I high five's when we came down off the stage from leading worship. So we were able to say a little something to her then. Then afterward, I passed her briefly behind the stage, just long enough to say "you were awesome!" She was very gracious. Her husband, John, had been with us all afternoon. That was fun to see him at work as he was getting the stage and sound and videos all ready for Anita. Here's a few pics from our day


Chris and Sherri

This is a picture of Shane doing the moon walk across the stage. It was Hilarious! I wish I had a video tape of it. He was pretty good!
Tim and I putting on our make up
Lovey waiting in the dressing room
on stage

afterward...

good times!

On the Blog Again

On the blog again, I just can't wait to get on the blog again. The life I love is sharing blogposts with my friends, oh I can't wait to get on the blog again.

Tonight is the first "normal" night we've had in a week. I've missed just "chill'n", and reading some of my friend's blogs. Of course, the reason I haven't been able to chill and read my friends blogs is because I've been WITH them in person instead. I'm ready to love you all from afar for a while :-) ra ha ha. (just kidding. we're home tonight, we'll be ready to do something again tomorrow!)

When Denny walked in tonight, I was fixin' spaghetti, and I said to him, "it feels so good to be home cooking a meal." In 20 years of marriage, I don't think I've ever said that it feels good to be fixing a meal.

We had the Robinson/Renee Swope event this weekend. It was great having the opportunity to work with Renee, and it was SO good to see her. There was no doubt that hearts were touched. You could see it on the faces as many of the women were fighting back tears at the end of the day. Why is it so hard for us to just let go and cry? Denny was just telling me that Sunday while he was singing O Praise Him in church, that all of a sudden in the middle of it he just wanted to bust out crying. I said, "well why didn't you?"

That same thing happened to me during 3rd service last week. I started crying during the first song of business with God. I kept thinking, "I'll do better on the next song" Then the next song came, and I was crying harder. There was nothing wrong. Everything was right. Just right. I wasn't expecting to cry, but His presence overwhelmed me. It used to embarrass me to cry in church. I gave up the fight after being introduced to this scripture, "He who plants in tears, will harvest with shouts of joy..." Psalm 126

We're looking forward to another fun weekend, as we get to do the Anita Renfroe event on Friday night, and then Matt and Christy will be in town on Saturday and Sunday. Yay!!

Okay, this blogging moment has helped me to get over the blogging blues. GRETCHEN have you done a new post yet!! I know you've had nothing else to do. :-)

On the blog again, like a band of Christians we go down the highway, we're the best of friends....nere, nere, nere, nere, nere, nere, nere, nere...

More Pics from the Celery Stalker

Okay, I think I'm about to leave this subject, but I thought I'd share some other fun pics from Missy and Cathy's excellent adventure!

Cathy taking a picture of me taking a picture

The Protector...

The Matrix...(that's only funny if you've seen that movie)

Leaven following Celery all the way to the fence saying, "but if you select me as your vice-president..."

more meet and greet. Leaven on the other side addressing the crowd, "when I'm vice-president..." (just kidding)

The Motorcade...
Cathy and I JOINING the motorcade....YEE HAW!!!

Cathy taking a picture of me as she's laughing hysterically, and yelling, "WAVE Missy, WAVE!!"

I wish SOOO bad that I would have had my cam corder running at this point. I've known Cathy for 20 years, and we have had some GREAT times together. We've laughed until we cried on MULTIPLE occassions, but in all my 20 years of knowing her, I've NEVER heard her laugh like she laughed when we were in the Celery Fenton motorcade! It was priceless!!

This is outside of the Toga, and let's just say that "the Protector" did not allow these people to stay on top of the buildings for very long. They had them down in no time at all..

The crowd at the Toga

Once we got to the Toga, we snuggled up close to our fellow news brethren. They had a prime seat on the media wagon. We ended up leaving here before Celery came out (a professional Celery stalker would never do that)

Here's a pic of the infamous Cathy with our reporter Liz...

Wow..what a great time we had...I never knew Celery would bring me so much joy!! :-)

Operation Celery....a SUCCESS!!!

(First of all, if you don’t know who Celery is, see the post below titled “Phil and Celery”)

This whole Celery thing has gone a lot farther than I thought it would. Let’s do a little recap here:

1st…my attitude toward Celery is not the greatest (that’s a kind way of saying it)
2nd…about three weeks ago, I have a dream about her. In the dream, Denny and I were with her and Phil in a cabin. While sitting at a dining room table, she shares her heart with me. As she shares her heart, I feel God’s presence immensely, and I feel a great love for her. As if He poured His love for her into my heart.
3rd…I wake up from the dream, and the love for her that was poured into my heart, remains.
4th…I tell you all about it on my blog.
5th…I later find out that she’s coming to Terre Haute, so I say, basically, “who knows, maybe I’ll see her, stranger things have happened…”
6th…I announce yesterday, Operation Celery…
7th…Which brings us to today…

I drove by the Toga on the way to work this morning…not too much happening there at 8am. I went to work and kept an eye on things through our “spy cam”. Still…not much going on. I was fairly busy this morning, so combine me being busy with “not much going on at Camp Celery”, and I almost just dropped the whole mission.

My partner in crime, Steve, had bowed out. So I turned to “Condo North” (my friend who sits to the right of me) I invited Cathy to the mission. She, of course, was up for some fun. (she always is.)

At about 10am, Cathy and I both slipped on our black coats and sunglasses, and walked side by side out of the building. At one point, while walking out of the building, I looked at her, and said “I feel like we look like the blues brothers all dressed in black and wearing sun glasses” she chuckled and said, “yes, and we’re on a mission from God” :-)

We headed out East to go to a McDonalds drive thru (Cathy was hungry), and then we headed to the airport where Celery was supposed to land. There were cops parked at the corner of 46 and Poplar, so we weren’t sure we could even make our way back to the airport, so we did a “drive by” first. It looked as if we could make it through, so Cathy, the aggressive one, said, “let’s go” (insert Blues Brothers music here). We went past the cops, and made it to the airport. We pulled in the airport parking lot. Cathy, again, not being shy, drove right up to the airport runway and parked by a fence. There were probably 100 people there standing a little ways down from where we parked. About the time we pulled in, Celery’s plane landed. We got out of the car and stood at the fence, and waited about ten minutes while all the entourage got out of the plane.

Then, there she was…Celery. She stepped down out of the plane. After immediately hugging a couple of people who were there to meet her, she turned to the crowd and waved. Then the unexpected happened…she made her way across the airport runway walking straight towards Cathy and I…Yikes God, I wasn’t really expecting to get to talk to her!

As she makes her way, a grandmother, who was standing next to us with her grandbaby, asked Cathy, “If Celery talks to the baby, will you take a picture?” and that is exactly what ended up happening. We were probably a foot away from Celery, with a fence in between us. But she came right over to where we were at. I had to move back a little because the crowd started moving in, and I was trying to lean back out of Cathy’s way so she could take the picture….but still, I had the opportunity to pray, not with her, but for her. As she stood not within four blocks of me, (previous post) but as she stood within two feet of me. Only you God, I said. Only you, would have made this whole series of events happen. From face to face in a dream…to face to face in reality.

When Cathy and I left, we talked about what the chances were of that happening. That she’d be in my dream. That God would bring her to my town. That we would “happen” to get out of the station, through the McDonald’s line, and to the airport, just in time for her plane to land. That she would happen to exit her plane, and make a bee line straight for us. What’s the chances of all those things working out just the way they did?

I’m not sure what that was all about. Was God just providing me some good entertainment? “I want you to pray for her Missy. Let me just bring her to you.”

Operation Celery

Alright, Celery's in town tomorrow. ETA...10:30am Eastern Standard Time. Destination...Toga. That's code talk that only the locals will understand. :-)

When I left the office today, Steve (my office condo mate) and I discussed that Celery was our mission for the morning.

We'll first scope the area to see if there's a place we can park and watch, and not get shot by the pecret pervice (I don't want them on my blog either). We figure that there's no way we'll get in the Toga, unless we want to spend the night there tonight, and we're certainly not that interested.

If Plan A fails, and we can't get near the event, then we'll come back to the studios and view it from the station tower cam...which I will hereafter refer to as "spycam". :-)

I'm being a goofball, but it is pretty exciting when you work in a news office and something like this is going on. There's an excitement as you can hear, all throughout the office, people taking calls and answering questions, and just talking in general about the event.

Whether you like her or not (and I'm sure most of the people who read this blog aren't her biggest fans) you have to at least think it's somewhat cool that a candidate is stopping in little ole TH.

All joking aside, I'm very serious when I say that God has had her on my heart...and I come from a long line of die hard republicans. But still, there she remains. So, everytime I see her picture, I pray for her. When I see her on TV, I pray for her, and tomorrow, as she stands within four blocks of where I stand (God willing) I'll pray for her.