Lafayette or Bust

Well, it's been a few days since I've been home from my trip to Louisiana and so I think that I should fill you in on what happened during the trip. To be quite honest with you, I was totally psyched about this trip, so much so that it was all I really talked about for days leading up to it.

Gene and I graduated from Rhema together in 2002 and hadn't seen each other or talked to one another in the seven years since graduation. In 2006 I was led by the Holy Spirit to google him. Now I hadn't seen him or even thought of him in all that time; why now? Thank God for the inward witness because after reconnecting with him, we because to just share with one another what was happening in our lives. The good, the bad and even the ugly. One day Gene told me about him and Mary becoming engaged and he asked me to be in his wedding, which I gladly accepted. The story of how Gene and Mary got together is just awesome and if you know Gene, you know that he has a real genuineness about him.

Well, I dislike sap and fluff and so I'll save you that part and just jump into the trip. The trip for me actually began the night before because I had so much trouble sleeping because of the excitement. I finally ended up falling asleep around 1:30 and unfortunately had to get up at 3:30am. That is so depressing having to get up that early. I arrived at Pittsburgh Int'l around 5 to begin my trip my checking in, going through security and the other stuff. This didn't take too long and so I figured that I could have slept in til 4, arrived at the airport at 6 and still had time to spare. After making my connecting flight in Memphis, TN, I arrived in Lafayette, Louisiana around noon. After picking up my car, (Chevy HHR- It was a retro station wagon), I wen to go to my hotel and ended up getting extremely lost and wound up in a bad part of town. After driving around for almost an hour, I found my hotel and checked in.

Lafayette isn't really all that bad as long as your familiar with the main roads. I'm used to the grid system of roads, Lafayette on the other hand, is far from that. The locals told me that a drunk man designed them. This I had to believe. By the end of the trip I knew the roads better than Gene and his family (not really, but I come close to).

I met up with Gene at the Church on Thursday and got to meet his beautiful bride. Mary is just an awesome woman and she'll be a great help to Gene. Really they're a great help to one another. I even got to meet Mary's daughter Liz as well. After hanging at the Church, we wound up at Cracker Barrel for some lunch and to just have some fellowship time. Gene and I had some fun with Liz because she wasn't feeling to hot, she had the sniffles and that just opened the door for us to tease her a little. This was all in good fun.

I do not like to share personal stuff, but I'll just say that my heart really went out to Liz. No in a romantic sort of way, but in a way that she needed someone to just love on her and to just reaffirm her self-worth. I continue to pray for Liz because I know God has some great things in store for her life. I think of Liz as a little sister and really think and speak highly of her. Mary did a great job raising her and her brother Billy.

Friday began like any other day where I went exploring to learn the roads better and to just add miles to the car. I eventually met up with Gene and 2 of his girl's (Misty-16 and Molly-9) to pick up our tuxes and head out to lunch. Gene's girls are just adorable and I count it a huge honor to have met them.

I am skipping around a bit because I want to give each person their own story without making this too long. Tomorrow I will continue to talk about Gene and Mary all they way up until they left Saturday for their honeymoon. Monday I would like to talk about Gene's sister Rachel and her family as well as their parents. I know Rachel will read this and so I'll try and say nice things about her...hahaha..She is a tremendous woman of God and I count it an honor to be a part of her extended family.