You might be a redneck if...

you have a dead frog hanging from your front bumper!And it's been there for days!!!  Rick said he's even driven through the car wash and it's still hanging on.  I'm sure glad we ate lunch BEFORE I saw this.  A quick picture of Rick, Steph and Don before we headed north.

Monday, on the road again

Went to the grocery store for Mama Trudy this morning and then we are on our way to Tulsa. Have to tell you... we just filled our gas tank with $3.13.9/gallon gasoline in south Oklahoma City.

It's a beautiful day. 80 degrees at 10:40 a.m.

We're enormously happy and relieved to have the job of emptying our storage unit over and done with. Again, Debby, we appreciate your help and your extra pick-up truck to help us get all the stuff moved.

We had a wonderful visit with Debby and Don's mom yesterday, Sunday. Mom is doing much better now that she is living at Debby's. Getting her trailer all set up for living in has had to take second place to Debby's father-in-law. Steve, Debby's husband, is now in Miami, Florida with his daddy as he deals with the last stages of cancer. Debby will be going to Miami on Thursday for the weekend. Steve has talked to his dad about his salvation, but still isn't sure he understands. Debby says it's going to be her goal to lead him to the Lord. We are praying that she gets there in time and that God will soften his heart and open his understanding to the simple gift of eternal life that Jesus Christ has for him through faith and forgiveness. We're also praying that God will allow him to live long enough to share is salvation with someone else and help lead them to the LORD. Wouldn't that be awesome!?! Thank you for praying with us.

Mama Trudy is doing good, also. For this, we praise the LORD. I sent the following email to all my family and friends of Mama Trudy that I have email addresses for and I thought it might be an idea that you would like to use in your family. If you don't have an aging Prayer Warrior in your family, feel free to borrow mine. She would be so delighted to receive mail from folks we've met in this ministry and you can be sure she will pray for any request you send her. Just tell her that you are friends of Don and LaVon. It would be a tremendous blessing to her to hear about the answer to your prayers, also.

Just a little history about her commitment to her Savior: She has read the complete Bible through every year since 1967!! And she says that God speaks to her in a fresh way every time she reads it. OK, here's the email I sent out:

While we were in chaplaincy training this week, ministering to the elderly was a topic. This idea came to me. While it seems that all of society thinks that someone else needs to minister to our aging parents, the Bible tells us that their families and their church families should be doing this. (I am not condemning nursing home care here, as long as the family does not ignore the aging one while in nursing home care.)

The idea: As Mama Trudy's extended family, we love her and want her to be happy, don't we? Nothing would make her happier than to receive letters and phone calls from her family. Not just letters, but letters with specific prayer requests for you and your family. She's a prayer warrior, we all know that. And we know that she prays for us daily, but how much more rewarding it would be to her, and beneficial to us, if she had specific prayers to pray every week. Don't shelter her. She knows none of us are perfect. Tell her anything that's on your heart that needs prayer. She will take it to her grave and never tell a single soul, but our Heavenly Father. (especially if you tell her it's confidential) She will take your request to the cross with complete faith and trust. It would be such a blessing to her and give her life new meaning to be able to pray specifically for her children, grand children, great grand children, nieces, nephews and friends.

Look up and write down scripture that you would like prayed for yourself and your family and send them to her weekly or at least twice a month. She loves getting mail.

I think this is a great idea and I'm going to do it. Just think of the legacy of the prayers of Mama Trudy. A great way to honor her and bring fulfillment and usefulness into her life. She's ninety years old and she's still with us... she's still with us for a reason. Not only that, we are so blessed that she doesn't have dementia or Alzheimer's Disease.

I pray that you all get as excited about this as I am. I think it is an idea from God.

Mailing address: (I started to post her mailing address and phone number, but decided against it. Just email me at lavon7_99\at\yahoo\dot\com* and I will send you Mama Trudy's address) Please pass this on to any and all family and friends of Mama Trudy. I don't have everyone's email address.

*Thanks to Snookie for the heads-up! Explanation regarding my email address: "There are programs out there that search for email addresses on a daily basis and the ones found are then sold to spammers. Save yourself a lot of time from having to delete all the spam and make that change. You can even put in a sentence explaining dot is . if you think it is needed." ... so \at\=@ and \dot\=.

Love to all.

Seeing an old "friend"

A quick post to say that we are now proud non-owners of a empty storage unit that was draining our bank account every month.  We got everything moved to our new little 8'x8' storage building... with the help of Don's sister, Debby.  Thanks a million, Deb!

Something happened to us today that few rarely experience in just such a fashion.  Remember, we're in Norman this weekend and we were driving down the street going to church this morning.  As we passed Sooner Mobile Home and RV park, I glanced over and saw a 5th wheel with Savannah written across the front.  "Uh, Don, doesn't that look like our old house?"  Don:  "It IS our old house!" 

After lunch we drove back by the RV park, which BTW, was where we were parked when we traded it in for the Quantum we now live in... anyway, we drove in just to make sure and there were the few remaining letters that Don didn't get taken off.  If you ever saw our 5'er, you will remember the black block stick-on letters that said: "CHAPLAIN DON/LAVON BAKER."  Now, it only says: "PLAIN."  Well, it was just weird seeing our old 5'er that we had traded in, but we are happy to know that someone bought it and is enjoying it, hopefully, as much as we did.

1 Thessalonians 4:16-18

• 16.
• For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.

• 17.
• After that, we who are still alive* and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever.

• 18.
• Therefore encourage each other with these words.

*(and in Christ, born again Christians, saved)

Is this cool or what?!

Leslie has been really busy scrapping pictures digitally.  This is a layout of Pook at the park.  I LOVE this... really good, Les!  (click on pic to see a larger view)  I mean, how did you do that????  So cute.

SE Kansas countryside

[Dedicated to my son-in-law, Khalil Coltrain, who grew up only a few miles from Coffeyville, Kansas.  In fact, his alma mater was a big rival of Coffeyville and vice versa.  Enjoy the pictures, Khalil!]

I took a few pictures on our trek from Branson to Coffeyville, KS today, so will share them with you.  It's such a different scene from the Ozarks to southeast Kansas.  This is what Snookie would call a "going down the road" picture as we leave the Ozarks behind us.Everything is still very green in Kansas with all the rain from Ike. You will notice in a lot of these pictures just how ragged the trees look.  That is because they were ravaged by the 2007 ice storm. I love all the farm houses and old barns along the road.Fresh dirt.  There are a lot of soybean fields here.Harvesting of this corn field has begun. Lots and lots of these tall weeds boasting pretty yellow flowers that I wish I had a close-up of.Ah, ha!  Sad looking, isn't it?  See the broken limbs?Almost got the horses in the picture. Lots of work going on in the fields of Kansas.Isn't this a neat looking farmhouse? More ravaged trees An old brick silo way out there on the edge of the field. I missed most of them, but there was a row of old combines at this place... about eight of them. Today was a beautiful day.  See the reflection of the trees in the muddy, yet glassy water.  And the sky... so blue with lazy white clouds about. Even the pecan orchards look ragged, but a lot of cleaning up has been done.I like this picture. Yep, pretty muddy.  Not like the rocklined rivers of the Ozarks. Going through Chepotah, KS... or was it Chetopah?  (update:  I Googled it... it's Chetopa.)  Iron wheel, anyone?  I think you might find one here.Slow-paced, rural American town.Folks doing work that must be done.  I almost missed this tech in the bucket, evidently replacing a burned out street light.  (I almost didn't get him in the picture!)A Kansas grain elevator in the distance.A southeast Kansas farm. Oops, a short delay for roadwork.Is there a story here, or what?  So much life, heritage and history in all these pictures today.A beautiful farm place on a knoll.  (I believe they need to bale the front lawn.) Notice the trees.  That was some ice storm that came through this part of Kansas, western Missouri and eastern Oklahoma.I was looking out Don's window and almost missed this on my side of the road.This was a really pretty place.  That dark square shape below the house is the opening for the garage under the house.Can't you just smell the apple cobbler and yeast rolls baking?  Of course she's wearing an apron.  Are you kidding?Another Kansas farm community.More fresh dirt.  Well, freshly plowed.  Reminds me of that story.... "no, no, no... make your own dirt."  Love it!Kansas tax dollars at work, no doubt.  A little highway improvement. OK, totally not planned.  The focus here is the sign: "Coffeyville - 1 mile.  However, it appears we picked up a passenger on our antenna.  My guess is... grasshopper.We made it!!  We've picked our site and getting set up.  We chose a site under the pecan trees.  There doesn't seem to be too many pecans this year, so maybe we won't get "rained" on by falling pecans. OK, let's see.  No sewer, no cable, no wi-fi (put we have an air card, yeah! and we get great reception here), 30-amp service only.  Gonna be an interesting three months.

Yes, our 4 hours on the road today confirms once again that the creation around us testifies of God and His intelligently designed creation.  Why is that so important?  Because there are those who may have never heard the Gospel of Jesus Christ, yet they are inclined to say as they look around them,  "This didn't just happen.  I sure would like to know who created all this."  This is where the God who sees and hears all will move heaven and earth to get the Good News of Jesus to that one person, who wants to know, even if they are in the jungles of the Amazon in South America or driving down a highway in southeastern Kansas.

Dan Rominger came out and greeted us when we drove into the park.  It's his day off.  He's working nights: on two, off one, on two, off two, to get his 40 hours per week.  He said we just missed Yvonne as she just left to go back to Springfield to watch their grandson play in the band at the football game.  Dan and Yvonne are friends we met last summer in Branson at Oak Grove RV Park.

Thank you for praying for us.  Now that we are here safely, please don't stop praying.  There's work to be done here and we count it all joy.