Keitt Update - June 2011

You can plan a pretty picnic but you can't predict the weather...

From the critically acclaimed Outkast single "Ms. Jackson" that hit the radio waves early 2001 just in case you're not up on your early 2000 hip-hop lyrics.

I told myself when we started this blog that by no means did I want to "document" every minuscule event that took place. I apologize for multiple blogs in less than 24 hours...

So as an avid mountain biker today was a day of high anticipation. My last day to ride before the bike is packed up to be exported.

Planning the pretty picnic...

• Just replaced the bald traction-less rear-tire as well as my 3rd chainring that desperately cried out for retirement.
• Packed up all necessary items in the car the night before so I wouldn't forget anything or wake up Christine as I left in the morning.
• Fresh nalgene of brita filter water chilling in the fridge.
• Coffee maker set on Auto for 6:26am. I don't even drink coffee, that often due to it exponentially increasing my already high energy demeanor, but I knew that I'd be running on little sleep.
• Woke up feeling like a champ
• Sky is cloudless. Temperature perfect.
• Hydrated up with the coffee and 32 ounces of pristine water.
• Not to sound all pious but I had an solid conversation/prayer with God on the way out to the White Water Center trails.
• Busted through the first section at a solid pace.
• Ipod shuffle was doing it's magic.

...but you can't predict the weather

Just as I was about to head into my favorite high adrenaline black diamond section of the trail, my bike abruptly stops.

I look down to see that my chain has popped off. No worries though, it's happened before and I'll just pop the quick snap lock back on.

Wrong.

:)

My entire rear derailleur snapped in half and has found itself rapped around the spokes of my rear tire. This is the beautiful piece of machinery that allows for the gears to shift. Basically a vital part to the enjoyment of the bike in general.

I believe that only the Fink boys can understand the frustration that I'm feeling at this point.

Due to the strangling grip the derailleur has on the rear spokes I mournfully carry my bike up the now not so exhilarating hills and out of the trails. Opportunity for more prayer.

As I'm driving out of the parking lot, I realize that I'm without my auxiliary cord so I'm left trying to find something on the radio to mellow out to. 95% of everything pumping through the FM is quite lame to say the least and Kate Perry and Nicki Minaj were not what I was needing at this point. They aren't worth googling if you haven't been reduced by their music already.

Luckily, Lupe's "The Show Goes On" is finally played which was a nice little pick me up.

Sometimes you've just got to laugh about the absurdity of things. I find all of this quite comical. Seriously :)

At least I'm super hydrated and caffeined up for the massive amount of packing that we'll be doing today. Here we come Chile!

Funness...

As you can guess this is Tracey, not the 5th Grade English teacher typing.

Funness… grammatically and red squiggly disapproved but still proper for this occasion of fun activities and events that have occurred this week.

Finished creating the shipping crate...just waiting on the animals (in pairs obviously) to show up. I started to think about how devastated Noah would've felt if his ark "titanic-ed"... Just pray that when we arrive to the Chilean warehouse it's still a rectangular box or maybe even a square but no other shapes please.

Learned about the fascinating world of "Space Bags". If you haven't tried these yet, it's a must. (Thank you Jonathan and Lydia for that GREAT idea!)

We had our going away/give everything away party which was a treasure that Christine and I will remember for a long time. Being as hospitable as we could, we thought baking was necessary. Any excuse that calls for baking cookies/chocolate/ice cream is an acceptable one in my book.

I'm pride myself on my superb ability to taste test.

By the way, watching Gabrielle (sister) and Charles (my brother in law) throw down in the kitchen baking some cookies as well was priceless.

Finally, without a bed and much else up stairs we decided to rearrange our humble abode a bit.

The Keitt Combo Room: Living room, dining room, master bedroom.

The Boydstuns

Ok so I should really be going to bed right now instead of beginning a blog, but thinking about the amazing time Christine and I just had at the Boydstun's place...well it's worth sharing right now & feeling a little bit tired in the morning.

So Christ has really put amazing people around us in Charlotte and we will miss our community so much more than I can probably understand at this point. So the Boydstuns...

Dennis and Lisa (and their 4 adorable children) are long time friends of mine who moved to Arizona a few years back and have just moved back in the past 6 months. They subletted their house (due to the wonderful housing market) and were able to move right back into their old house & neighborhood.

For some odd and illogical reason they thought it would be a good idea to start a youth group in their neighborhood which equals bunches of youth 8-16 years of age running through their front door, sharing dinner and hanging out with them and their kids on Monday nights.

One of the most beautiful pictures of community, love and service I've seen in a long time. They are such a Holy Spirit lead family that continually inspires Christine and I.

So they had us over to speak to the kids about what we'd be doing in Chile & what being a Christian looks like for them in their day to day lives... amazing evening. We had great dialogue with the kids about their pursuit of loving others, following Christ & everything in between. I think this is one of the only times I felt like I was in a "house church" sort of situation.

The mere location of all these youth was the common denominator. Dennis and Lisa, through the power of the Holy Spirit, were able to create a youth group of blacks, whites, latinos, elementary, middle & high school kids who are learning about the realness of Christ, growing in the Spirit and having a taste of a rare form of community that we don't see much anymore.

I love watching the Spirit move.

Great News!

Because of my lack of skill within the world of Excel spreadsheets, our latest support update (53%) was miscalculated. Thanks to my tech-savvy husband, we were able to fix whatever was wrong with the columns, only to find that we are actually at 60% of our financial support met!!!

Thank you, Lord, for using my ineptitude for blessing :)

Keitt Update - May 2011

Answering prayers

One of our prayer requests that we have asked many people to lift up in the past month has been the opportunity to share our story. God has answered that one specifically in an incredible way, and I’m looking forward to what other ways he is going to provide.

This past weekend we had the opportunity to share our store at all three services of our church. A bit overwhelming at first, but still such an amazing feeling to be able to connect to a community of people who are excited to hear about us and what God is doing in our lives. We’ll tell you more about how the sharing went later on.

On Monday afternoon we sat down and chatted with the Mission’s Pastor at Myers Park Methodist, Kevin Wright. His genuine interest and excitement for what we were doing was a real boost to our spirits. It wasn’t even that we were feeling down or low in spirits. Not only did the church give us an incredible blessing financially, but I could see that this relationship with Kevin and Myers Park Methodist will be a lasting one.

Hey…I almost forgot, one of our other prayer requests had been to build up a solid group of churches to send us out. God is so faithful.

I’ve been reading through 1 Corinthians, the part were Paul kept telling the church body to stop bickering and creating divisions. Although I know denominations have great significance, it was a breath of fresh air to simply talk with a brother in Christ. Seeing both our and Kevin’s passion for the bringing of the Kingdom of God triumph over the typical divisions and walls of denominations was beautiful.

I think Paul had something right with that thought of unity. Think of how much the Church could do if we just stop cutting each other down, but instead focused on unity under Christ.

Last night we met and spoke with two combined small groups from our Church; Keith and Jennifer’s as well as Dusty’s groups. We had a mouth watering potluck and really got to meet and know some more wonderful people of our congregation. They gave us the floor to share our story and prayed over us, strengthening the thought that we will be leaving with a strong community of prayer warriors at home.

Thank you all for your prayers. As you can see God is still in the business of answering them in mighty ways!