My Summer Vacation

My Summer Vacation

By Rachel Donovan

Grade 13

I had only been in Texas for about 20 minutes when I stopped to let the dogs out to exercise their legs and go pee. The air was warm and damp and as I opened the back door of my SUV, I was swarmed by mosquitoes and bitten 4 times as I tried to get untwisted from the dog leashes as they headed in different directions. Not a good sign of things to come for a 2 ½ week stay in Texas. The drive took 14 hours and it was good to see my Aunts house already occupied by my sister. Every morning was an exercise in futility as we pulled different muscles trying to gracefully roll out of the air mattresses set up on the floor. Peg sometimes shared her “nest” with Thunder who always got way more room than Peg did. He would start out in the corner but within a few hours had taken over the bed. Those were some good sleeping days for him. Often when we would come back inside during the day, he would be in the nest relaxing!

We spent the first week taking back the house and the grounds from the critters and getting the house presentable with long sweat soaked work days in 90+ humid temperatures and a heat index of 100. Several times I was able to totally prank Peg like dad used to prank mom, pulling her landscape cloth away when she was trying to line it up or spraying her with the hose when she wasn’t looking. Several times, Peg was able to make me jump just by walking up behind me while I was concentrating on my work, which also made her jump and us both laugh. Valentine would find different ways to undo the work we were doing by digging holes in the freshly laid dirt while hunting for lizards or sneaking out of the closed gates and visiting neighbors. She is truly an escape artist and bungee cords are my friends for life.

We both had different injuries as the other tried unsuccessfully to hold back the laughter. Peg’s as she scraped off her new toenail polish slipping on the wet concrete I had just cleaned off and me as I dropped the small sledge hammer on my foot and the crow bar on my shin that we were using to put up our “For Sale” sign with car sale flag banners. When I looked over at Peg to explain why I was yelping in pain, I could see her visibly trying to hold back the laughter as she listened and tried unsuccessfully to act concerned. We ended up with numerous bruises, blisters, bites and calluses along with who knows how much dirt/bugs were ingested from an open mouth while working hard. I know I ate my share!!

We had lots of exciting adventures like when we loaded the tractor onto the trailer to take it for repair and Peg took a long ride up the ramps, or we took adventure routes listening to Garmin and ended up at a gas station 40 miles away instead of the landscape place 10 minutes away to pick up rock. Or, when we were showing the house and pointing out the beautiful scenery view, Thunder decided to go poop right in line with the view. There was excellent food on the days we went out to eat and visible relief when we got the sewers unplugged and won the war with the wasps and rolly poly bugs. I would like to express my appreciation to George Foreman, Black Flag, and Roto Rooter for making our visit comfortable. Peg would have preferred a kinder, gentler spray for the bugs but I had no qualms at all about killing as many pests as I could in a single, lightening swift spray of the can.

I never thought I could be sore in sooooo many places at the same time but being so tired at the end of the day made the sleep sweet. We started each day with coffee and aspirins! And, we were surprised at all the idioms of mom’s we ended up using like, “I’m coming alive,” or, “This is the best meal I’ve ever had!” or, “What big orangutan screwed this on?” We realized how we had been callous as kids laughing at the pain age brings with it. All in all, we were able to fix as many things as broke when we used them and leave the house far better than we found it. From the beginning of this trip, I prayed daily for courage, wisdom and understanding – in that order, and God really delivered! We took on more than we thought possible and succeeded far beyond our expectations, met some great folks, businesses and restaurants and had many more good days than bad.

We are planning our next vacation adventure now and that is my summer vacation story.

Grace, a real time example.

"Seabiscuit" is a great movie displaying how Grace works in everyday situations.

One of my favorite parts is the owner of the horse, jockey and trainer saying, "Its fine Tom, you don't throw away a whole life just because it's a little banged up." That is Grace; accepting that we all are a little banged up in one fashion or another. Grace says, "That's okay, you are still valuable to me."
The movie shows 4 losers - according to human standards that is, a man who lost his son and wife, a trainer thought to be a crackpot, a beat up horse trained to lose races and a jockey making huge mistakes causing both physical and emotional scars. Grace allowed them to pick themselves up and try again. What the world saw next was a team of winners. The whole time, Grace saw winners in need of a second chance.

Loving Those you Care For

Often, we think that True Love is that gushy feeling we get when someone we are attracted to returns our affection. That is not true love. True love, the love that lasts for decades is loving someone enough to put their needs above our desires. We must love them enough to put our desires on the rung below their needs, not their desires. The thing we get wrong about love is we tend to think that giving someone what they want is love. We are so anxious to have our own desires met, one of which is affection being returned, that we give and promise those things we can not or should not give believing that it will not only show another that we love them, but that affection will be reciprocated. Those things that we need in life are very much different than those things we desire. We desire candy that is neither good for us or positive in its benefits yet when someone gives us candy we say, "They must care for me because I wanted candy and they gave it to me."

As a recipient of love, we must love the other enough to say, "I would like to accept your gift, however, if you give this gift to me, it will create a burden for you. Even without this gift, I will reciprocate affection and accept your generous thought as though it were here and now, because my desire is to do what is best for you above my own desires. That is love. Each loving the other enough that burdens are not created, stress is eliminated and life becomes simple. We can trust in a love like that because we are confident that all will benefit equally from the relationship. We can trust in a love like that because we know the other has our best interest at heart. We can trust in a love like that because it is simple everyday actions that reinforce that both are willing to make concessions in the area of desire.

Love is an iron clad commitment of the will that says, "No matter what, I will be here for you to help you through," and then doing it. Love is work, a commitment to work out the rough spots. Love is work fighting against our own desires that try to preempt caring more for someone else. When we ask ourselves, "Who will benefit from this," anything with an answer less than, "Everyone equally with no additional burden," is not love, not the kind of love that we should try to model. 1 Corinthians 13:5 "Love, does not seek its own." 1 Corinthians 10:24 "Let no one seek his own, but each one the others well-being." No better definition of love exists.

Division - Promote it, or diminish it

When we find others that disagree with us over various topics, we have a choice to promote it, by passing it along to others which only increases the division and adds people to the divided camp, or, we have another option, one that few of us take because it requires a commitment of time and effort. We can choose to diminish the division, one person at a time; we can step outside of our comfort zone and ask them why they believe what they do. When we hear them begin to answer, we don't need to immediately form a debate to defend our own beliefs. We can walk a mile with them, in their understanding and have them show us, where they got their information. Together, we can check the source of it and see if there is merit to it, and if there is, then we both have learned something. If there isn't merit to it, we both have learned as well. We have probably learned that those that do not believe the way we do, are still kind, generous human beings that deserve respect and should have a voice to disagree with us. We have probably learned that we are more alike than different and as such, can form a friendship based on a respect for our differences. How much better would our world be if each one of us were to ask another why, not as a challenge, but as a sincere effort to understand one another and mend our battle scarred country that has been hijacked by those who do choose to divide rather than mend. Who will you be?

To Mom with Love

Heavenly Father,

You gave me a Mom who was not afraid to say, "No," when it was best to protect me from danger.

You gave me a Mom who was not afraid to say, "Yes," when it was best to encourage me.

You gave me a Mom who was not afraid to teach me at an early age that the most important thing in my life is knowing Jesus Christ and His forgiveness.

You gave me a Mom who was not afraid to stand against compromise, who taught me to know right from wrong, who didn't worry about being my friend and yet become my friend as I matured and recognized the protections she and my dad had covered me with.

You gave me a Mom who taught me a love of music that I will take with me the rest of my days; a song in my heart speaking volumes when words cannot.

You gave me a Mom that was in many ways, fearless, breaking barriers, standing against injustice and in many ways, frail, blended together by your hand.

You gave me a Mom that loved laughter and joy and corny jokes, a perfect match for the love of her life, my dad.

You gave me a Mom that was not afraid of commitment and taught me that love withstands all things and remains loyal and honorable to that commitment.

You gave me a Mom that shaped my life with all that is good in this world, a life lived that touched eternity.

I am humbled that I have received more than I could measure, more that I could have ever hoped for in the woman that you created to be my Mom.

Yes Father, you gave this to me as a gift, a heart full of memories that will carry me over until I see her and my dad again in Heaven.

I love you Mom.

Being on the Outside

A member from our credit union came in for a loan. As we talked, he told me about a woman whose husband had died. They had been married for 32 years and she was very upset because in the tribal tradition of burial, she could not be part because she was not Indian. As I questioned him about this he said that the man was taken, given the burial ceremony and then buried in an unmarked grave in a remote area on the tribal burial grounds.
That tribal ceremony had no respect for a life lived of 32 years together. It didn't acknowledge the love, care and support spouse had given to spouse. No acceptance of two lives lived together for most of an earthly existence.
I told him how wounded I would have been if I had given that much of my life to one man and then not been allowed to be present in death simply because I was or was not a particular blend of humanity. I told him that God is no respecter of persons, He doesn't require us to be a particular blend of human, or have particular rites. He agreed, he said, "Man is the one who shuts people out based on their perception of what is allowed. God does not."

Week 4 Political Science Post

2) If you could interview a prominent political activist (living or dead), whom would you select? List five questions that you would ask about that individual's childhood or personality in order to better understand his or her political behavior. Why are these particularly revealing questions?


If I could interview a prominent political activist, I would choose William Wilberforce. Wilberforce was responsible for the abolition of the slave trade in England, spending the larger part of his life fighting it. He fought tirelessly for many years against political corruption and greed that kept slavery alive and well, as it was a very profitable trade for many of his peers in Parliament.

1. What first unleashed your passion to make a wrong right by abolishing the slave trade?

2. How did meeting John Newton, (the creator of the song Amazing Grace) affect you and lead to your decision to take on the challenge of abolition? (John Newton had been a slave trader for years responsible for the miserable life and deaths of hundreds, if not thousands of slaves that he brought from Africa, until one day, he met God. He did not stop slave trading immediately upon his conversion, however, after some years and much study, he did give up that life and began a life of church service.) Wilberforce had gone to visit Newton to inquire about giving up his life of politics now that he had met God. Newton wholeheartedly encouraged Wilberforce to serve God and mankind where God had placed him, in politics.

3. As a youngster, you were frail and sickly, and as a man, while still frail and sick often times, you took on a challenge of gigantic proportions in the slave trade. Were you ever concerned that you would not have enough fight in you to prevail in winning freedom for the slaves?

4. Did you feel overwhelmed with the amount of adversity you faced with political opponents, motivated by large sums of money, which were entrenched in Parliament, having enough political clout to continually thwart your efforts? What kept you going during the times when victory seemed unobtainable?

5. Your biographies mention that you have a beautiful speaking and singing voice. Would you sing Amazing Grace for me? What does that song mean to you?

These questions reveal the tenacity that is required to accomplish great things via a political life. Without a foundation of courage, character, compassion and commitment, the important issues that need attention and correction will not be addressed. William Wilberforce was beloved by his countrymen and his opponents, and, left a legacy that is still celebrated today both in England and the United States, with colleges that bear his name as well as celebrations of the historic day his legislation passed. Wilberforce College in Wilberforce Ohio was one of the first African American owned colleges in the US and is primarily an African American college.