BACK TO NORMAL?

Howdy All:

Things have settled down nicely here after last week's excitement. So it's time to catch up with the kids.

Steve checked in a few times this week, letting me know he did some shopping last night at WalMart. Why wait for Black Friday - if they already have what you want, go ahead and scoop it up and avoid the crowds. I think he had fun since he posted about it. You can read about it at Steve's Journal over there on the right. Speaking of Steve's Journal, we also had a grammar and spelling dispute a couple of days ago in his comment section. I came down on the winning side, and it was fun. We ended up talking about words people use that drive us crazy. My number one entry : prolly. What's yours?

EDIT: BTW - I don't mind it as written slang on Im, it's the speaking it out because people think that's how it's pronounced that grates on me. Another one is "in - POR - ent, for the word important, and "HOTE-in" for my son's alma mater "Houghton". Is it my chorale training - which taught me to enunciate - what makes these words so annoying that I stop and correct people?

BTW Here's where I got started about prolly...over in Steve's comment section. This is me speaking:

I simply cannot abide "prolly". Long before it became internet shorthand, I had a couple of friends who continually showed their distrust of the letter B by pronouncing it that way. And every time they did it my respect for them dropped ten points. They sit today in my Character Scale Chart in negative numbers with their only hope of redemption being perhaps the Nobel Peace Prize - which they would probably accept saying, "I prolly don't deserve this award...".

We now rejoin our regularly scheduled post...

Tom was in a shopping mood yesterday as well. He called me a couple of times for pointers on pants and pillows, and I sure he went home a satisfied consumer. Just in case you thought he was stuck on the "P" part of his shopping list, rest assured that he also bought a queen size sheet set as well. We're looking at going down to visit him next weekend if our Living Waters Conference falls through and he's not too busy. If it doesn't fall through, we'll be in NJ on Fri. and Sat. to learn about small group techniques for our LW classes which start in January.

Jere's at the BASIC conference this weekend. Along with Karen and Katherine, and others. I trust they are having a great time. We should hear about it on the Djereometer (link's on the right) in a day or so. Karen has a birthday on Monday. I hope you all join me in wishing her wishful wishes. I have a couple of small things for her, so I should really get them in the mail, eh?

Rose rolled her ankle again yesterday in practice. It's quite painful, so we'll have to see what happens. She has a scrimmage game next Saturday against SLU. She only knows a couple of people at that school. I hope she won't be too lonely. Hi, Miiiiikkke. She's at Potsdam Goes Country with Alyssa (her roommate) tonight, and called me earlier when they played our song. Awwww. She's wearing her new cowboy hat. If you want to see a picture of her in it link yourself over to her blog and check out some earlier posts and you'll see it. She's cute!

Sarah and John are doing well. Sa and I went on a date last Sunday night. We had fun, well I had fun, and she kind of had a rougher time of it. That's because she had her eyebrows done for the first time. I won't share much detail; it's her story. But she might not either because she might have blocked the whole painful incident out somehow. You'll have to find out over on her blog, I guess.

John doesn't have much to report. He hasn't updated in a while. I'll have to get him working on that. I had him working on cleaning his room today because in just two weeks, everyone will be getting ready to come home for Thanksgiving. Tom's done on the 11th but has finals the next week, so I'm not sure when he'll get home for sure. Rose is done on the 18th, but has a BB game in Boston the next day - so I don't expect her home before Sunday the 20th. I imagine Jere will be home Tues. the 22 or so, as well as Steve...but they haven't told me yet. I'm looking forward to it.

So, there you go. I have to go finish frosting my biscotti. I have to get something out to Tejla before Thanksgiving! I'll have an update on my sister's recent lost checkbook ordeal next time.

Thinking of you all...

Love, Mom


PS: Sonny's off at a Men's advance with Dad. They'll be back around midnight. I guess he was mad because I didn't take him with me last week.

ON THE ROAD AGAIN

Willie Nelson joins John Denver in my Title Tribute to Country Legends of the 70's 2005...

EDITOR'S NOTE: This is Part 3 of 3. You need to go back two days to find the beginning if you want it to make sense.

Mom and I pulled into Black River around 1:04 AM, and were greeted by her many cats, who get very angry when mommy goes away. I went to bed on her couch right away, worrying that they were going to keep me up all night and sure enough a few minutes later I awoke to a persistent evenly spaced cat-voiced "Mwroow! (Mississippi), Mwroow!(Mississippi), Mwroow! (Mississippi), Mwroow!(Mississippi) Mwroow! (well you get the picture)". I wondered if I was the one who had bought Mom that stupid hideous alarm clock, but then I heard mom say, "Well, it's 7:00..." and suddenly the meowing stopped as Mom began feeding the noisy felinious alarm. What! I was confused! It was morning already?

We sipped our coffee as I called the prison again to share our Albany trip details and to make sure Joe was really there. Yes, he was. Could we come up today and see him? Yes, we could. Were the visiting hours different in the hospital part of the prison? No, they weren't. "Ok, we're on our way", I said, and hung up, but first I recorded the names of the two gentlemen I spoke with. Then I called Sherry. She was waiting for a call back from a Utica area non-emergency fire and rescue guy who was trying to track down the gas station in Utica, where she had probably left her checkbook and all of her ID. The gentleman she spoke with (Joe M.) told her no one was answering the phone at the gas station, but he knew right where it was and he would personally drive over there when he got off work at 8 AM. He would pick up the checkbook, call her to let her know and then drop it in the mail for her. One of her concerns was whether she should have given her phone number and address to him. Was he really a nice guy, or was he on his way over there to start up a new internet business with my sister's personal information? She decided to trust God, since she had prayed for His help before calling, and therefore expect that good news would be forthcoming. This whole balancing being as wise as serpents but as meek as lambs is hard sometimes. And as we talked she expressed again her desire to see Joe with us. I told her I'd call her right back.

I quickly dialed back the prison and asked for the watch commander by name (Lt. Ginnette) and explained the circumstances of the last 5 days, ending with telling him we were headed up to see my brother this morning. Then I explained about my sister's ID, and he said, "Well what ID does she have?" After telling him all she had was her birth certificate he crossly said "Bring it!", and went back to his busy day of abusing subordinates and terrifying inmates and their family members. Yah! I called Sherry back and asked her if she wanted to go and headed for Sofie when she said "Sure!". The hour trip to Dekalb passed quickly and soon Mom and I were in her kitchen watching her work the phones between her bank, the Visa people, and the mysterious gas station which was still not answering its phone. It was 9:15 AM and the Joe M. had not called back yet. We gave her the option of staying behind to ease her stress levels, but she wanted to go, so we took off after a quick stop at her bank to get the paperwork started on cancelling her checking account.

Dannemora is 2 1/2 hours from Dekalb, and when we arrived, it was 12:45 - lunch time. The check in guard didn't really understand our request, and began making the first of many phone calls to verify our story. No one had told us anything except that we were going to be allowed to visit Joe in the prison infirmary. Evidently that had never been done before. B. Goodwin (Bruce to his friends) said civilians are NEVER allowed onto the prison grounds. Only prisoners well enough to walk to the Visitor's Room under their own power are allowed family visits. But after his last phone call to Lt. Ginnette (I provided the name) B. informed us that his boss said it was ok (it was then I knew that the Lt. and I had secretly bonded during our early morning conversation), and so B. then said he was going to do everything in his power to get us through processing as quickly and efficiently as possible. B. also said he had been there for 20 years and he'd never seen such a thing happen before - EVER!

We were assigned our own guard (T. Jennings - to whom I mentally assigned the name Toby because there just aren't enough Tobys in the world, I think) who would take us over to the infirmary building. He was to stay with us until the visit was over and then accompany us back. We got through the metal detectors with very little trouble (why? - because we know better now!) and soon we were loaded into a Prison Van (ewww) and Toby was driving us up to the biggest gate I'd ever seen in my life. The trip was short but longer than it should've been because Toby had to tell everyone, at every gate and every stop point window, why we were being taken onto a Maximum Security Prison grounds. In case you're wondering why I said Joe was in a minimum security a couple of days ago - it's because Dannemora has an Annex next door, where Joe usually is kept, that has a lower designation. And congratulations for paying attention and making it this far. I'll have a little something for you if you let me know you made it through the whole story...

We drove onto the prison grounds and around in a loop to the back and down a sudden dip that felt just like a free fall on a roller coaster. We swung into a parking space in the back of a building where our van was unlocked and we got out and made our way up to the back door. We waited a few minutes for a buzzer release that would allow us entrance. I don't know why it took so long, but I'm glad Toby was there, and that he had a gun. I can't say that I was afraid, but honestly we were out of our element, and these places probably have rules for a reason. After the buzzer finally buzzed, we walked single file into the prison infirmary building and climbed a flight or two of stairs before we were held again at another check point for about five more minutes. We were explained again (Toby was getting good at it by now), and then led past some curious prisoners to a large empty room that had only a table, 2 benches and a couple of chairs in it. Toby wheeled his own chair in, and he took a seat on it. We sat down to wait as well. Suddenly in walked Joe. He appeared a bit irritated to see us there.

We all hugged him without thinking, because we usually can at the beginning of our normal visits. Toby didn't draw his weapon, but he did get us seated quickly on separate sides of the table. After a few minutes we determined that Joe was irritated because he felt like his situation had caused us to have to be in these circumstances. He didn't want us to have to be here in this place, but after ten minutes into our 90 minute visit, he was relaxed and was fine. We explained everything, he explained everything. I couldn't believe he was walking around, and not in bed. We discussed all of the gory medical procedures, and all the meds he would have to take from now on. I'm on a couple already, too. We discussed Albany and the Mall and the checkbook debacle. We bored Toby to tears. But finally we were all able to discuss everything that had happened in the past week, face to face. When we said goodbye we talked about trying to get up once more weather permitting, before winter hits. He's in the mountains, so winter is very relative. He said he'd be back in his regular minimum place the next day, so our next visit would be less stressful and dangerous, but that if it had to be in the Spring then so be it. They led us all out together and we were held at the checkpoint while Joe was taken back to his bed. As he was passed through the doorway, he turned and waved goodbye again, smiling as he went. Mom and Sherry weren't looking, because they were keeping wary eyes on the unfamiliar sights. But he saw me see him...I love you Joe.

We took our trip back out of the prison without incident. Back downstairs, back into the van (ewww), up the dip which Sherry and I did like a roller coaster with our hands in the air saying, Woooo...(Toby gave us such a loooook, but I think he smiled), back around the loop and across the grounds and through the bigggg old gate, and over to the processing buildings. Once again my finely honed navigational skills came in handy as Mom and Sherry kind of got lost and tried to find our locker and purses one building too soon. We had one more close call after we had gathered up our stuff. As we were standing at the last door waiting for the guard to press a buzzer and let us out, my sister reached over and pulled it ohmpen, oops I mean open. I cringed as Bruce (we were friends now) dove for the door shouting, "NO!". I was expecting sirens to go off, followed by a mandatory 24 hour lockdown and investigation, but instead the door merely ohmpened up without a hitch. Bruce quickly shut it, and instructed the guard again to buzzer it open as required by NYS regulation 66445.890B. We left them talking about how that door wasn't supposed to ohmpen like that, but it was the third time this week it had! Ahhh, do you feel safe, now?

Well that's all there is to that story. To wrap up, we drove Sherry home to Dekalb Junction and found no one had ever called about her checkbook all day. Joe M. had seemingly fallen off the face of the earth. No one could ever find a working phone number for that gas station, and my sister had to cancel all of her cards, and order all new ID's. It's been three full days and it hasn't arrived in the mail yet. I'm still praying it will though. You can too. I'll let you know if it shows up.

We had made plans to do dinner and a show with Rose and Mike that night, so we drove back to Canton where Sofie began complaining once again about the lack of petrol in her tank. We pulled into Stewarts where the price was only $2.49! And it was my turn to pay! Woot! I got a great price, the lowest in five counties. I'm still driving on that tank, by the way. We then drove around a bit waiting for Mike to finish up at his Bible Studly, and then picked him up and got subs at Subway on the way to the SUNY Potsdam gym, where Rose had asked us earlier to pick her up at 7. We were running a bit late arriving at 7:10. Unfortunately she didn't come out until 7:50. Mike ate his chips and called his Mom. I had no chips, but my Mom was right next to me. :) I do love my Mom. This week had been stressful, but I had a great time with her and my sister, despite the circumstances.

After Rose came out (released 50 minutes late due to a mandatory meeting about Drinking rules during BB season), we hurried over to her dorm in time for the gilmore girls. And instead of the exciting new episode where "Jess Was Back!", we were treated to a rerun. I didn't care. I hadn't seen it yet, so we all ate our subs and I enjoyed the company. Mike and Rose squabbled over frappacinos because I didn't bring enough, but they appeared to come to a fair negotiation before the show was over. I emptied Alyssa's garbage (again. What? I like doing it!) and brought in the rest of the stuff she had requested, along with some fun stress balls Mom had gotten for the three of them in Massena. Then it was time to go. Mom and I dropped off Mike on our way back to Watertown, and I drove her back to Black River where our adventure officially came to an end around 11PM.

Thanks for sharing my adventure with me. It did take some time and patience on your part if you made it this far, but rest assured, if you ever have an adventure I shall be the first in line to hear all about it. Also, if you need me to come and rescue you or just see you for a little while, Sofie and I await your call. You have to comment and let me know what you thought if you want a prize boys and girls. Don't dawdle...marked down halloween candy doesn't have a long shelf life around here...

Know you are loved...

God Bless...
Mom

COUNTRY ROADS...

I will continue my Tribute in Title to John Denver...

EDITOR'S NOTE: This is part 2 of 3. You will need to read Part 1 from yesterday to have it make sense.

So here we were, lost and alone, but together (one of the many enigmas we would face that evening). Thanks to my amazing navigatory skills mentioned earlier, (and moreso the Amazing Grace of God) I was able to get us back to 11N, but somehow we were north of all of the fuel stations we had seen on our earlier passthrough. We were coming up to a mall we had observed before, and we knew it had a Walmart, so we decided to drive over and see if they offered gas at this Super Center. They did not. We continued to drive around behind the mall and then down past it, until we were rewarded by the sight of a Sunoco station a mile or so further down the road. The price was not to my satisfaction, however I did not protest too long. After all, I was not paying anyway, Mom reminded me. We filled up and went inside to visit the Dunkin Donuts attachment.

The young man on duty at this late hour was evidently in costume as a surly, inadequately trained donut clerk (which he played to the hilt), as it took him forever to produce our simple order. I used some of this time to visit the restroom, which I couldn't help but notice smelled exceptionally fresh. I placed my wallet down, mentally reminding myself not to leave without it, which worked because a minute or two later, I was exiting the bathroom with it safely in hand. I went back out to the counter to discover that Skippy had still not managed to obtain the two coffees, a dunkacino and four donuts, that I had heard Mom order as I left. My sister shot me a woeful look, so I offered the good news that their bathroom was incredibly fragrant. She decided to wait it out in there and disappeared around the corner. I grabbed my dunk and donuts (at least mine were ready...) and headed out to the car to wait. A couple of minutes later they finally emerged and we headed back to Watertown.

The trip back was uneventful, except I must note that as soon as I cleared Poland again, gas stations appeared on both my left and right, and all at substantial savings. They mocked me mercilessly, because if only I had waited five more minutes we would have been halfway home by now. It would have saved us a lot of grief actually, some of which we were just becoming aware of. As we got closer to Watertown near midnight, my sister started getting all of her stuff together. "Are you sitting on my checkbook?", she asked hopefully. "Um, no." I replied. Mom searched the back seat in case it had slipped through there. We were nearing my house, so we decided to wait until we got there to check the car more thoroughly. We decided we'd stop there so I could grab some things to stay over at Mom's to save time in the morning, since she was 4o minutes closer to Dannemora than I was. Plus I wouldn't have to drive back from Mom's tonight.

Sherry didn't have any luck finding her checkbook, so we pulled out the gas receipt and called information to get the number of the station. The number she was connected to was not answering, so she decided it had closed for the night, so she would try again in the morning. I took her to the Watn. Walmart, where she had left her car, and followed her for twenty minutes as she started for Dekalb Junction, and Mom and I for Black River. Her checkbook was most likely in the freshest smelling bathroom in five counties, but that didn't produce any comfort for us. The thought that they had closed down for the night right after we left we thought might be good news, since we'd be able to get a clerk in there in the morning before anyone else could find it.

But besides the obvious problem of having her checkbook out there somewhere - perhaps the surly clerk took it home and was shopping on EBay even as we spoke - inside her checkbook were all of her IDs including her license, Sam's Club card, Visa Debit, and other equally important things, like a check for $1000.00 she was waiting to deposit the next day. And ifshe couldn't find it and get her license back, she'd be unable to visit our brother in the morning, as she would have no picture ID to produce during visitor processing. Plus she had another hour long drive home to ponder these things over, and over, and over, in her mind. After five days of nonstop drama, including an eight hour trip to Albany and back, she was not even going to be able to accompany us to see Joe. When we went to bed after 1 AM (knowing we'd have to be in touch with the prison by 7 AM), we still not know how my brother was, and what had happened, and we were feeling very dejected indeed.

Life calls,

Mom

GEE IT'S GOOD TO BE BACK HOME AGAIN

Caution: Honesty contained below.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Part 1 of 3

Yep, been on the road lately...hanging with the fam. The Grandma Sweet (Mom) and Sister (Sherry Jo) part of the fam. We enjoy each other's company immensely, but never seem to have much time to spend together without a real good excuse, and usually with lots of other people around (Sherry and I each have 6 children - that's 7 boys and 5 girls to give you a more vivid mind picture). My brother Joe gave us one (a good excuse - come on, keep up...) by suffering a heart attack last week. Eventually we would learn that he was first taken to Plattsburgh's Champlain Valley Community Hospital, but was immediately transferred to Albany Medical Center where he underwent a heart catheterization and stent procedure to unblock a clogged artery. He seemed to get to a great place for the surgery according to this article that I found in the WDT this week. Note to self: scan and insert table of mortality rates here...if you're not seeing it, sorry. I tried twice and will try again at the end, but I won't lose any sleep over it. Trust me, AMC has great mortality rates. 1.03 mortality rate compared to the statewide average of 1.61. They even beat St. Joseph's in Syracuse.

His ordeal really started last Sunday night (Oct. 23) but because he is in prison, family notification was not a top priority with NYS (sidenote: I have never hidden the fact that my older brother was in a minimum security prison, however I also don't share or glorify his story because it's not MY story to share. I will say that he is saved now and serving God every day which is more than I can say sometimes, and that I love and miss him with all my heart). So, he ate some spicy food Sunday night and started feeling bad almost immediately. He went three days in this condition and didn't seek medical help until he collapsed Wed. night (he very nearly died right then). He stayed at CVCH overnight and was then sent to Albany on Thu. night. Friday was Surgery and "Hey maybe we should tell his family what's going on" Day. Unfortunately it was late Friday and no one was at their post to receive our return calls. The weekend staff was a nightmare to get info out of. We tried to go to Albany on Sat, but the nurses told us he was being sent back to Clinton on Sun. morning, so we were encouraged to hold off and wait to see him at the regular site on Monday. In retrospect it looks like we were given a lot of information, but in reality until this was over we didn't know most of this background information. All we knew at this point, was that back on Wednesday, Joe was taken to a hospital - somewhere - with severe chest pains. Saturday, we found out he was in Albany, but was being transferred back.

Monday I drove out to Black River (where my Mom lives) at 6:30 AM and spent the next 5 hours on the phone trying to get information as to where he was and how long he'd be there and if we could see him, etc. Evidently, part of the problem is that NYS doesn't like giving out that kind of information, because they expect the family will then show up and try to "spring" their loved one of out the CCU and head for the hills (yeah, with tubes and catheters, right?). But, nevertheless, AMC assured us at 12 noon that he wasn't going anywhere that day, so we all piled into Sophie (my car) at 2:30 PM and headed off to our grand state capital. We blessed God for MapQuest, and dave for printing it off and meeting us on the ros with it, and soon found our way there with very little trouble. We arrived at 5:30 PM, at which time we were informed at the information desk that Joe had been sent back to Clinton around 12 noon. Don't let the irony escape you my friends, these are your tax dollars at work.

So what were we going to do now? We had to kill some time because I 90 West had closed down due to a huge tractor trailer accident just as we were arriving. I looked all over for some news reference to it later, but found none, so the driver must have been ok. But he (I'm assuming, yes I know I'm a sexist) made a real big mess. When we left for home at 8:30PM there was still only one lane open going west. Anyway...three women alone in a strange city...what would you do? That's right- go shopping! We decided to make the best of a bad situation and find a mall. CrossGates! One of the largest on the East Coast! Woot! How did we find it? We stopped and asked a woman! Who was dressed up as a geisha at a Quickie Mart (and she had made her own costume! I can't imagine she'll work there long with such talents.). We were living on the edge! They had a great Dollar store there, but we also took time to have some dinner at the food court, price out a computer system for Mom at Best Buy, and take a walk though Macy's! Yah!

I checked out the directory while Sherry and Mom went into the largest shoe store I've ever seen, and found a couple of interesting sounding stores I wanted to check out. The dollar store, and a Mugs and More shop were also next to a store called Stadium, so when they came out we walked about five miles (it felt like it) looking for these places. If you click on the link up there, you'll see the shoe store was down by J C Penneys, and we were headed over to stores 131 and 132. I was excited about Mugs, thinking I could find some unique coffe cups for Christmas, but alas all they sold was tee shirts with pictures of faces on them. Directories can only help you so much. When we were done, we walked all the way back to Macys, checking out their restroom on the way out to our car, which I found with NO problem due to my finely honed navigational skills. We pulled out and got right on I 90W and started back home.

We hit Utica near 10:40PM and by then Sophie desperately needed gas. I passed a couple of places that looked inconvenient or too expensive and started heading North on 12, but then kind of panicked when everything went dark right away. I distinctly remember the sides of 11N being lined with gas stations headed out of Utica, but now there were none to be seen. So to avoid running out of gas, we got off at the next exit (Poland) because someone had written on their exit sign the word GAS. We followed their subsequent gas signs all over the pitch black countryside, until we were straight back into slummy downtown Utica! I am going to resist the obvious slam here at Poland etc., but if your mind goes there, what can I say! If you write gas on your exit sign - you should really have a station somewhere... So now we're back in downtown Utica, with no gas station to be found anywhere. Arggh!...it was dark...it was late...it was Halloween, and we were on empty...

Know you are loved,

MOM

JOY IN THE JOURNEY

It was such a incredible month. I'm sitting here listening to my friend Tim Grant sing to me thinking about just how incredible it was.

It included the 2005 Spiritual Freedom Seminar (6 meetings plus hours of prep), Two Leadership Classes preparing for January's Living Waters 2006, the Lifegroup Presbytery, 7 soccer games, a basketball scrimmage game, two college family day weekends, four trips up to Potsdam (2 one way, 2 two way) involving three weekend home visits, a tragic family member's schoolmate's Dad's funeral, my younger brother's wife's broken neck in a car accident, my slightly older brother's (11 months) heart attack, catheterization and stent procedure, 2 trips to see him with my Mom and sister, hours at church, hours at Sackets subbing again, multiple hours in conversation with my husband, children and friends making new memories, helping each other, fighting and forgiving, or just loving each other. As it draws to an end after tomorrow, I can't imagine I will ever see it's equal again. It felt tough at the time, and recapping I can see why. But I wouldn't have missed it for the world. Thank you Father, for planning and directing my steps. For growing me up a bit more, for showing me that Christianity is more than a building choice when it's time to worship. It's a lifestyle. One in which the reigns are not always in our hands - if we're doing it right.

The SFS was amazing this weekend. One lady said when we were done praying, "I feel now, like I can go on". Another young thing (20?) had an an amazing breakthrough and promise for her future. When we were done she said to me, "Do you remember praying for me when I gave my heart to the Lord? It was a long time ago, like I was little..." She may have meant 4 years ago maybe 10. Time perspective is so relative. It seems like I've always been here doing this. But time IS passing. And I think I am just living my life here - keeping all my plates spinning. But more things are going on than I know. I am glad for that! People are still discovering there are deeper levels in God, as they surrender their hearts, plans and purposes to His Will for their lives.

After the seminar was over I went to Sam's to get pizza for the kids who were staying over from Oswego. Walking in I saw a man crossing over to the parking lot. He was walking normally with his full cart, and then all of a sudden he just took three big steps and rode the rest of the way to his car. Joy in the Journey, saints. It's God Design and Intention. I called Rosie up, because almost everytime we go to Sam's she rides back to the car on her cart. I finally understood why. I left her a message, I think she understood.

There is no wasted time in our walks with Christ. Some times are more fun than others. Could it be because we're not finding our own Joy in the Journey. October was a Blessed time. I can't wait to see what He has in store for me in November.

Know you are loved,

MOM





Sonny Says: I hope you turned your clocks back, boys and girls.




Song Of Adoption
Tim Grant

Welcome to - the family
Welcome to - your new home.
You were not part of Me,
But I've been planning this you see
Welcome to - your new life
I promise you, you will be satisfied.
Blessings you've never known,
Peace you'll have, and Joy untold,
My Child.

You are a Chosen one
You with My firstborn Son
You are the meek and mild
My Adopted Child.
For I have changed your name
and in My house you'll stay
For I have called you Mine,
My Adopted Child.

Welcome to - the neighborhood.
New friends you'll find, you knew you would
All things have been made new,
old things have passed, you'll see it's true
Welcome to - the family.
Make yourself right at home
An orphan you'll never be
When troubles come I'll never leave.
My Child.

You are a Chosen one
You with My firstborn Son
You are the meek and mild
My Adopted Child
For I have changed your name
and in My house you'll stay
For I have called you Mine
My Adopted Child

An orphan you'll never be, cause I have chosen you for Me, My Child.

Tim, I miss you my friend.