Scattershooting while wondering whatever happened to Bump Wills…
Thanks to Florida’s suffocating defense that kept Houston from even attempting a shot on their final two possessions, Tim Neale won our church office March Madness bracket challenge and I finished in second place. Tim is our back-to-back office champion, but we don’t know whether he qualifies for the free meal and dessert at our next staff lunch, or if we should buy it for his son, Seth. I finished as the runner-up. Andrew nailed down last place pretty decisively.
In other news, I won our Stanglin family bracket, finishing two points ahead of Whitney and six points ahead of last year’s champion, Carrie-Anne. That means Carrie-Anne’s bracket came off the front of the refrigerator first thing this morning and mine went up. It’ll be on full display in our kitchen for twelve glorious months. It’s just something we do. I’m not certain how healthy it is, but it’s just something we do.
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One of the several reasons we chose Emerson Elementary as a GCR local missions partner is that they are the MISD campus for “medically fragile” students. All Midland public school students from 7th grade down who have special physical needs go to Emerson where they have trained staff and facilities to take care of them. That part of the campus is equipped with hospital beds, oxygen, lifts, and everything that’s needed to support these most vulnerable in our community. They do incredible work at Emerson, work that most people know nothing about.
Our church recently purchased a special set of swings for the Emerson playground that meets the particular needs of those sweet kids. GCR bought the swings and paid for the playground expansion and the installation of the swings as just another piece of our partnership together. The swings were completed and unveiled last week, and our ministry team was invited to play with the kids on the new equipment this morning.
The sun was shining, the winds were calm, and the swings were swinging. The kids squealed with absolute delight and more than a couple of us joined them in being sad when it was over.
We are so thankful to God for our partnership with Emerson and so blessed by him to know so many wonderful teachers and staff who take such loving care of these precious children. We’re considering building into our work schedule some daily P.E. time at Emerson.
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Our youth minister, Jadyn Martinez, has been on mandatory bed rest for the past three weeks or so while she endures the final laps of a high-risk pregnancy. We’re missing her terribly around here, so yesterday we surprised her by showing up at her house for lunch. There was some fear that the surprise might raise her blood pressure and liver counts so that little Zion might come a week or two earlier than we need. But her doctor’s appointment late yesterday confirmed that everything’s still really good.
Except for Jim eating most of Jadyn’s chips, I think she enjoyed the surprise and getting to spend a loud lunch laughing together and getting caught up. Or she faked it really well.
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It was 34-degrees at Wrigley Field last night when the Rangers started their game against the Cubs. The wind chill was 23. And the Rangers were not good. Nasty Nate was uncharacteristically wild–two walks, two plunks, two stolen bases–and the Rangers bats were frozen in the 7-0 shutout loss. I’m not sure if that game has anything at all to say about where Texas might be in a month or two, or even at the end of the year. We’re not reading anything into an April game that was the second coldest in Rangers history. But how they respond tonight in equally frigid circumstances? What they learn and how they bounce back or not? That might could tell us something.
Josh Jung is off the DL and should be in the lineup tonight. I’m hoping that can help get this team over the Mendoza line.
Peace,
Allan
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