From the Mind of MandoRon

Hello blogosphere!  I have a prayer request for you.

I’m not sure if I’ve ever mentioned it before but my wife, Andrea, is pursuing a writing career.  She recently finished writing her second novel, Redbud Mamas, and we are headed to Denver tomorrow in hopes of finding a publisher and agent at a Christian Fiction conference.  (The first novel is current unpublished and she doesn’t think that anyone would publish it as a first novel.  Maybe someday…)

She has received some very good feedback from other authors on this second book, so we think she has an excellent chance.

But I would still like to ask that you pray for her, and that she will be succesful in finding someone who wants to publish it and also in finding the perfect agent to work with.  (Please feel free to pray for me as I goof off while she’s working.)

Thanks in advance!

It’s been a crazy, but good week here at the Burgess household, and I thought I would fill you in on some of the goings-on.  I’ve been meaning all week to do this, but have just never got around to it…  Oh well.

Tuesday night:

Our lifegroup went to a fire station for a tour instead of our regular routine.  It had never occurred to me do this, but it was a blast.  We brought them lots of homemade cookies. The five firefighters were very excited to show us around and answer our questions.  They let the kids climb all of the trucks, and spent a lot of time talking to them about fire safety.

The best part was when they let all of the kids put on a helmet and spray the hose.  I highly recommend giving your local station a call, and getting a tour.  I think the firefighters had as much fun as we did.  My only regret was that we didn’t take a few minutes to pray for them before we left…

Wednesday night:

This was the big Ferocious Mary/Edge of Grace gig at The Donut Whole.  What a great time!  The Donut Whole made for an awesome venue, although I don’t think they were expecting the huge crowd.  :)  They told Carmen that it was the biggest crowd ever for a music gig!  We played a 9-song acoustic set before Ferocious Mary took the stage - Mike Snow on guitar/vocals, Christina Wark on guitar/vocals, Jim Wark on upright bass, and me on mandolin/guitar/vocals.

The Setlist:

• Flood by Jars of Clay
• You Never Let Go by Matt Redman
• Drifter by DecembeRadio
• You Are My God by MandoRon (World Premiere!)
• Understand by Jeremy Camp
• Come to Jesus by Mind Smith
• What’s Up by 4 Non Blondes
• One by U2
• See His Love by Kim Walker

I can’t wait to do it again!

Thursday Night:

This was the Meet the Teachers night at school.  It was exciting to meet Jett’s kindergarten teacher.  Jada was also very excited to learn that she had gotten the 3rd grade teacher that she wanted. 

Alert: Proud Father Time!  In case you don’t know, Jada is skipping the 2nd grade and going straight to 3rd.  She’s so smart!

Friday Night:

Fantasy Football Draft with some old friends.  I lucked out and got the #1 pick!

Saturday:

The kids have been bugging me all year to teach them to play tennis, so I finally bought some tennis rackets for them.  We had a blast playing at Buffalo Park on Saturday, and again today.  It’s occured to me though, that I have no idea how to teach them to play…

Yesterday’s post about Jada’s church camp got me thinking about my own experiences at church camp. Primarily the junior high and high school years.

As it turns out, I wasted a lot of time and energy looking for the love of my life at church camp.  In hindsight, I apparently got the wrong denomination.  You see, I was at Falls Creek which is a Southern Baptist camp.

The love of my life was at a United Methodist church camp…

Jada has been off at church camp since Monday.  It’s her first time, and she was a little nervous.  Andrea and I have been curious about how she would do.  Would she get homesick?  Would she by shy?  Etc…  She comes home today.  I’m sure she’s having a blast.

GracePoint’s children’s pastor, Rochelle Mann, put together a blog for the camp and has been posting pictures, videos, etc… this week.  I thought it was a pretty good idea for parents wondering what their kids are doing.  The blog is gpsummercamps.wordpress.com.

I know of at least one parent who linked to one of the youtube videos on her facebook account.

Here is the recap video from day 2.  Jada has a brief appearance around the 1:30 mark and also the 3:13 mark where she appears to be helping Levi Mann float on his back in the pool.  Oh… and I just wanted to say “Nice hat Nathan”.

As I mentioned a few days ago, we’ve been on a major roadtrip.  But today, we made it back home.

Not much sightseeing the last few days.  Mostly, we’ve been in the car driving.

A few highlights since the last update:

We spent a night in Biloxi, right on the ocean.  Saw lots of hurricane Katrina damage.  And we saw lots of new resort casinos going up.  We stepped into the Hard Rock Hotel/Casino to do a little souvenir shopping.  Lots of cool memorabilia.  I looked into a room, but it was a bit out of my price range…  Air Supply was going to be playing a concert the night after we left town.

While parking at the Hard Rock, we saw lots of shrimp boats selling fresh shrimp at a dock.  I briefly considered quitting my job to become a shrimp boat captain.

I saw a farm in east Texas with Zebras and Longhorns mingling in the pasture.  Kind of odd…

In the Dallas/Ft Worth area, we ate lunch at Chef Point Cafe.  It’s a gourmet restaurant in a gas station.  Great food.  The owner is an old friend of my wife’s family.

And we saw a coyote somewhere around the Kansas/Oklahoma border.  I’ve never seen one before…

The statistics:

• 10 days
• 11 states
• 5 hotels
• 3, 123 miles
• nearly 59 hours in the van
• 3 books on CD
• 1.5 books (plus Andrea and Jada read a few)
• ? tanks of gas (I didn’t think to keep track)