Luke’s Notebook

Well, we drove some 397 miles today and ended up in Rock Port, Missouri, which is in the northwest corner of the state. Surprisingly, the drive really wasn’t bad at all. While on the road, we played some cards and just spent a lot of time talking and such. All in all, it was a very easy 400 miles, and that’s encouraging since we don’t really plan on driving more than about 350 miles on any given day during this trip.

About an hour ago, Mark and I took a brief bike ride to Brownsville, Nebraska, which is only six miles away from our campsite in Rock Port, MO. Neither of us had ever visited Nebraska before, and it didn’t look like we were going to on this trip, so we decided to take matters into our own hands — or feet, in this case — and pedal on over to Nebraska. After crossing the state line, we turned back and headed back to the campsite.

I’m about to e-mail home a few photos that we snapped today. One is of Mark driving the RV, the second is me standing on a picnic table while on the phone with Mom, and the third is a picture of Kaufmann Stadium in Kansas City, the home of the Royals.

I’d better run. I’m running on battery here, and Mark needs to get on to catch up with stuff. Tomorrow night we ought to be in South Dakota!!

Well, within an hour or so, Mark and I will be leaving to spend the night in the RV over at Grandma and Grandpa’s house. Early tomorrow morning, we’ll hit the road.

I’ll obviously be away from the computer a lot, but you can e-mail me at luke@famteam.com, or you can go to http://www.famteam.com/luke/text.php to send a text message to my phone. It’s a nifty little form I have set up, so feel free to use it to say hi! Don’t be bashful.

Please pray for a safe trip! I will update as I can.

This morning, Mark and I met up with Mom and Dad to go out to breakfast. We ended up driving to the Bob Evans restaurant in South County (in Missouri). Mom and Dad had wanted to take us out to eat and spend some time with the two of us before we embark on our three-week-plus trip to the west.

I love Bob Evans, incidentally! They have the best breakfast food. I ate a multigrain pancake — which, in my humble opinion, is the best pancake found on God’s green earth — along with something I had never tried before, a crepe. I wasn’t exactly sure what a crepe was, but, from looking at the menu, it sure looked tasty. So I ordered the crepe meal, which came with sausage, eggs and potatoes. The potatoes, incidentally, tasted like… sunflower seeds. Strange, I know.

Anyway, we had a good time talking about the upcoming trip. Mark brought along the printed itinerary along with a road atlas so we could better explain to Mom and Dad exactly where we’re going, what route we’re taking, and things such as that.

This evening, I started working on transferring our website, famteam.com, to a new server. Actually, it’s an old server — the server we were using prior to the past two months, when we moved the site to a more expensive dedicated server that would be able to handle more traffic than this place.

I’m getting a lot better at transferring the data and minimizing downtime. Moving the website is not nearly the daunting task that it once was. It’s still a chore, no doubt, but I’m getting a lot more efficient. This is definitely something I wanted to take care of before the trip, and I’m very pleased that I have been able to make so much progress on the transfer and that things have gone so smoothly so far. Thank God!

Well, that’s all I have to say about that.

God… let Your will be done. Please give me wisdom and discernment. My Number One goal is to obey You. Please guide me in every way, leading me in every decision that there is to be made. Let me live my life to make You happy.

From Nichole Nordeman’s song “Legacy”:

Just want to hear instead, “Well done, good and faithful one.”

From Matthew 25:23:

“His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’

By the way, as I woke up this morning I was met with a rather unpleasant series of technical problems. First, I went to my computer to check up on the message boards and the FamTeam Today! blog, only to find out that they wouldn’t load! I then tried visiting www.famteam.com, receiving an error there. Ugh! I didn’t know what was wrong, but I immediately feared that our MySQL database was toast, which would have meant the message boards posts, the FamTeam Today! entries, as well as my entries here, were… gone. That scared me, so I immediately called up our web host.

Turns out it was a very simple fix, and once the fellow I spoke with did that, things were back to normal. Thank God!!

Second problem of the morning was being informed that Mom’s computer in her office was not booting anymore, after my brother James had attempted a memory upgrade on it. The computer would just reboot a second after the Windows loading screen. I went to work on that, and I eventually found the problem. What was it? Himem.sys. It’s some Windows 98 file that must have gotten corrupted somehow. Exactly how, I don’t know. But once I copied a fresh version of the file from a different computer, Windows 98 booted just fine. Thanks again, God!!!

Tonight’s 8:30 game against the Naturals was the last softball game that Mark and I will play for a month or so. We don’t have a game on Thursday, and, since we leave Monday morning, we’ll miss Monday night’s game.

So how did we do in our farewell game? We won 14-2 in five innings. I batted 3-3 with an RBI single, a two-run home run, and another RBI single. It was pretty cool to be able to hit a home run (my 11th on the year) in the last game I’ll be playing for quite some time.

It was actually a beautiful evening. The temperature must have been in the lower 70’s, and there was a nice breeze blowing across the field. Oh, I’ll take this kind of weather anytime! Such a perfect evening to spend some time outdoors.

I have a bit of an update on this upcoming trip. About two weeks into the trip, my Aunt Jane is planning on flying home from Salt Lake City. The surprise is that my brother James will be flying to SLC on the same day, basically taking her place on the trip! So that will be neat. He’s really excited. None of us kids have ever flown, so that ought to be a really neat experience for him! Pretty cool stuff.

I want to relay a short story. This afternoon, I was in Granite City, delivering a couple of depositions to an attorney. On my way home, I stopped at a QuikTrip gas station in order to get a soda. As I stepped out of the truck, I realized I forgot my phone, so I opened up the passenger’s door and took my phone off of the visor.

As I was doing this, a kind of messy-looking man, who was leaning against the building, made some sort of light-hearted comment about, “Forgot something, huh”? I chuckled and went inside to get my soda.

On my way out, I saw this man again, and he asked me if I had 50 cents. I told him sure, and I reached into my pocket and gave him a couple of quarters. He thanked me; I smiled at him and told him, “No problem. Have a good day!” He went on to the pay phone to make a call.

I have no idea who this man was or why he needed to make a call, but I was happy to give him the change. I think random acts of kindness can really make a huge difference for both the recipient and the giver.

It may sound odd, but I suspect that God had a hand in that meeting. As I was driving on Nameoki Road in Granite City, I was in the right lane, debating on whether or not I should stop by QuikTrip, which was at the intersection that I was fast approaching. The traffic was pretty heavy, so I didn’t even know if I would be able to move into the left lane in time to make the turn. I looked in my mirror and saw a large gap in the left lane behind me, so I switched over. Even then, I kind of thought it was odd to have such a big open space with the otherwise busy traffic.

Whatever the case be with this, I just felt that God kind of winked at me. That’s the best way I can describe it. It obviously wasn’t anything huge, but I just think God wanted me to make it to QuikTrip, to forget my phone, and to have two extra quarters in my pocket. We have a great God.

Well, I have most certainly been learning stuff from our amazing God. I had that entry a few days ago expressing my frustration in regards to certain friends and relatives. Wouldn’t you know it that just days after it, God would give me an assignment. What is that assignment? Love. I think God wants me to love these people.

When most people think of love, they probably think of something mushy — a man/wife, boyfriend/girlfriend thing, complete with pink hearts and little cupids with arrows. What I’m talking about is a little bit different, though. I’m talking about an action more so than a feeling.

I really feel that God is saying, “Okay, Luke, you want to do something? You want to make a difference? Love them.” Understand that I don’t think many people consider me a scrooge or some angry person, but I do realize that I could do a better job of loving people. One reason I struggle may be timidity or figuring it’s best to stay silent in certain situations.

What exactly do I plan on doing when I talk about loving people? Well, it will obviously vary from person to person, but I think it’s all about expressing compassion, showing you genuinely care about something or somebody. Even if it’s not any profound conversation, I think simply listening attentively can mean a lot to somebody. Sometimes even just a “Hey, how are you doing?” to somebody you don’t know really well — something as simple as that — could spark something.

1 Peter 4:8Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.

I am constantly amazed by how much of an impact you can make by simply loving somebody. I have seen so many people be “won over” by love. I think the reason that happens is simnply because not everybody experiences genuine love, but when they do, they like it.

With the folks I was writing about the other day, I like them. They’re fun, and even though I don’t appreciate some of the things that might be talked about amongst them, that is certainly no reason for me to write them off. After all, it’s not like I’m some elite Christian who has everything under control, never makes a mistake — no way! I know just how flawed I am, how much I depend on and need the grace of God. I need to reflect God’s love to them, in words and in action.

It’s just awesome to be learning this stuff. I’m far from having mastered this, but I am thankful that God is patient with me as He is showing me how to reach people. Let’s just keep loving people, no matter how insignificant the situation may seem to be.

We played at 7:30 this evening against the Xsox. It was a pretty close game, but we managed to come out on top, winning 9-7. I batted 1-3 with a single and a walk. I was kind of frustrated that I had a ground out and also grounded into a fielder’s choice, but I’m pretty happy that I was able to bat 1-3, considering I’ve been pretty sore today.

What hurts? Well, mostly my right pointing finger and my left knee. I don’t know why my finger is hurting, but it started bleeding after our 9:00 game yesterday, and it has been really tender since. It doesn’t seem like it would affect much, but I’m not able to grip the bat as well. Hopefully it will feel better by tomorrow night’s game.

I mentioned my knee is also hurting. There’s a bit of an explanation for that. In yesterday’s 12:00 game, I made a sliding catch in left field, during which I kind of had an awkward stop, and it must have just tweaked something in my knee. All day today, I haven’t been able to fully extend my left leg without experiencing quite a bit of pain from my knee. Thankfully, though, I’m still able to run pretty well as it is.

I’m going to go ahead and write another entry, but since it’s on a totally different subject I’ll just go ahead and divide them up. Stay tuned.

But I must sleep. I’m really, really tired and really, really sore. My right pointer finger hurts like all get out, my left knee hurts like most get out, and my feet are a little bit sore, too.

We won at 9:00; lost at 12:00. I batted 4-7 on the day. Though we surely didn’t want to lose and get eliminated, it was a very hot day, and I was thankful to have softball finished with, rather than having to continue on as the day grew hotter and hotter.

I better run. Catch up with you all sometime soon!