I had post written out for y'all on Monday, and I don't know what happened to it. But, anyway I got home Sat. Sun. We drove down to OK City to drop Samuel off for TeenPact. His host family, the Belshners, seemed real nice. Samuel, Ethan, and I had a lot of fun fencing with their boys Brad, Matt, Evan, and Derrick. Other than them there's 2 little girls, Grace and Hope, and a friend, Tammy, and Mr. and Mrs. Dad is driving straight from work tonight to go get him. It will be so nice to all be home again.

Let me see how much I can tell y'all about the month of Feb. in 54 minutes!

We stayed in a little town of just under 800 about 30 minutes from Memphis called Gallaway. Gallaway is a lot like Nespelem, WA for those of y'all who've been there. Lots of drugs, gangs, unwed mothers, and a grand total of 2 dads with their original family. Ms. Karen and Bro. Ronnie lived on Watson Drive, the boys' trailer right across the street, the church behind them, City hall on their right, then a road, then the traintracks. The trains were pretty loud. If you turned left on the street that ran parallel to the train tracks, and went down 2 houses you'd be at Eva and Phil's house, painted a very pretty yellow. Eva is the Grunewald's daughter, who married Phil Bone June '01. 2 houses down from that is the girls' house, the only 2 story house on the block I believe. So that should give you a general idea of where I was. Now who I was with.

Bro. Ronnie has pastored the First Baptist Church there in Gallaway for 6 years. Before that he worked in Texas in the oil field, and felt called to the ministry and Tennessee there. Ms. Karen dug her heels in for 2 years before agreeing to move. They're both still very much Texan, but they love Gallaway even though not all of Gallaway loves them. Bro. Ronnie runs a home remodelling business on the side, called Heavenly Homes. After he pays his own bills, he usually ends up paying other people's utility bills around town. He's a real tease, and is basically the "dorm dad" for all of us.

If Bro. Ronnie is the dorm dad, then Ms. Karen is definitely the dorm mom. On top of doing all the mother and household duties, being a pastor's wife, discipling two women from the neighborhood (one a Christian with the typical Gallaway past life, one not a Christian, still very much in the Gallaway rut of bad habits.), she watches a neighborhood boy, Tim, when his mom is at work (which means pretty much from the time school let's out till bed time). She calls all of us gals lady bugs, and I don't remember wheither she has a name for the guys. She's a dear, and very easy to love.

At the girls' house the gal in charge is Becky Jackmann, 23.

And at that suspensful moment I have run out of time. More on Becky later!