Coming Full Circle

Mark Thomas photographed the skyline as we approached Dallas.

This move is like coming full circle. I have lived in a lot of places and several different states both as a child and as an adult. But I was never more upset to move than when we were transferred to Kansas from our home in Plano. My Father worked for J.C.Penney and my two sisters and I were more than familiar with the drill of moving and adjusting to new surroundings. However when we moved back to Plano for the second time we were told that we would not move again.

Sadly when I was in eighth grade that turned out not to be the case. We moved to Topeka, Kansas and my parents stayed there for nearly 12 years. We all loved living in Plano, we had a lot of friends, attended a great school and the sports, mainly soccer were awesome and continuing to grow at the time. Topeka for the most part seemed pretty awful at first. We were used to a sprawling city and when my parents took us to Topeka, my Dad showed us the store he would open at the new mall, it was on Wanamaker Road, we drove a little further down that same road and our new house was being built, and then a little further down that same road and there was the middle school, and then again a little further, the high school I would attend. It blew my mind that everything was all on the same road! We all eventually found friends there and adapted to our new surroundings but our hearts were somehow always still connected to Texas.

I graduated from high school in Topeka and longed to return to Texas, applying to Texas Tech and TCU among other schools. I was offered a scholarship at Texas Tech, visited and liked the campus but in the end was not quite ready to be that far away from home so I decided to attend Kansas State University and stayed there for three years. After my second year, I again visited Tech and even looked at apartments but again the timing was not right. I was involved with Campus Crusade for Christ and participated in two summer beach projects. One summer living in Panama City and the following summer living in San Diego. In San Diego one of my roommates went to the University of Alabama and I decided to visit her over Labor Day. I fell in love with the campus and decided to visit again that January over Winter break. I fell in love with something, or rather someone else during that visit!

Mark had just transferred to Alabama from the University of Pittsburgh. We began dating over Spring Break when I visited again and from there on things were a whirlwind. I spent part of the next summer in Italy, where we wrote letters to each other and learned how to communicate through the mail. Those letters are treasured possessions of ours. I transferred to Alabama that fall and we were engaged and married by the next summer.

My history of moving did not stop when I went to college. Mark and I have lived in several states too and those moves were both wonderful and hard. I fell in love with a part of the country I had never been to. The Northeast is beautiful and I loved living in New York so much as did the kids. But it was hard being so far away from my family. They slowly returned to Texas and were all within 45 minutes of each other for years. I'd call and they'd all be in the same house over the holidays and I'd long to be with them.

We moved to Beaumont three years later after I attended the funeral service for one of my cousins. I listened to people talk about him in a way that I simply did not know him and it was because we did not live that close to him while we were all growing up. I did not want that for my children. Beaumont was a short 5 hour drive from my family and we saw them so much more than we ever did during the first 10 years of our marriage.

Well, now God is taking us back. When Mark received a call from the APNC in Plano we were so surprised that God could actually be taking us that close to my family. Strangely enough Mark prefers the climate down here and I still long for the Northeast but being so close to my family is a concession I would gladly make. As I drove down here last week with a trailer and the kids in the truck I felt a strange sense of completion in bringing them back to a place I loved so much as a child. Our two oldest children are in middle school and Max is going into 8th grade. The grade I had just finished when we left Plano.

It is such a gift that we'll be close enough to see my family so often. I love that the kids will be able to be here in such a great area for schools and sports and that the church that God has called us to will be a place where they can grow in their faith. We have not yet been able to visit the church as a family because we're awaiting some final steps through the Presbytery but there are so many things we're excited to become a part of in this new journey.

So although we'll live in Prosper, Plano, my old stomping grounds will be where we'll spend a lot of time at the church and with the people who live there and in the surrounding area. This growing metroplex is not going to know what hit it when the Keffer Crew arrives in full force! We hope to be settled by the end of July and will be ready to get into our regular routine the second week of August. God is good, all the time and we're very thankful for the provisions he's put before us allowing us to partner in ministry with a wonderful congregation while being so close to my family.

Did you think I'd left the Planet?

Photo disclaimer....there will be no photos in this post. For some reason my computer is not reading my flash drive.

Well, so much for my New Year's resolution to try and update a few times a month. March seems like forever ago and there have been so many things I wish I had posted to our blog. Honestly sometimes it's the time it takes to upload pics that bogs me down. I just wish it was faster. And sometimes it's just life in general, thinking that I'll sit down and do it and then things keep popping up.

So I'll try to recap briefly. April and May were just baseball, baseball and more baseball. With the three boys all playing we were at the fields most week nights. All of them did great. Mark Thomas' team only won 2 games during the regular season but advanced through the brackets much to our surprise to play the best team in the league. We had them on the ropes and were up by several runs when Mark Thomas was put into pitch. He caught a pop up and threw the first runner out at first and then struck out the next batter. We thought we were golden. I was standing behind the bleachers praying and trying not to cry I was so nervous for T. Some sloppy errors and some not so great calls by the umps, missing two calls that should have been outs and well....we lost. It is nothing short of pure devastation and heartbreak to see your son want a victory so badly and not achieve it. We just tried to pump him up as best as we could and let him know he did great!

Ben's team also had a great year. He played for the best coach in the league, Coach Terry Falgout and we had a great time sitting in the bleachers every game with some super fun parents. Ben's team suffered a heart breaker too, just two days after Mark Thomas. One of the biggest issues in Little League is pitch count and we had bases loaded with our lead off hitter up to bat who had already hit two home runs in the season and one grand slam. The opposing pitcher had reached his pitch limit, we knew it, the press box knew it and so did the head coach but he did not remove him. We didn't protest immediately thinking we'd be able to pull out a victory but we didn't so a protest after the game did not put us back into the tournament. Our coach did an excellent job of communicating to the kids the importance of playing fairly and winning the right way. We all knew who the real winner was even if they didn't advance in the play offs. Sometimes winning is more about character development.

And Max's team advanced through the third round too. This was his first year in the Junior League and boy was it different. Such a drastic difference to Little League. The field was huge, same distances as a Major League field except for the distance to the home run fence. I felt like I needed binoculars to see him most days. He did well. Learning to hit with more confidence and field it in quickly since the batters had to book it to even have a chance to get on base and stay there.

May brought about the end of school for Mark Thomas and Max at St. Anne's. They had a great year and we just fell in love with the school community. May Crowning, worshipping during Mass; Mark Thomas was asked to read during closing Mass and he did a great job, and wonderful teachers and parents. It's a fabulous place to learn and grow and we're thankful the kids had the opportunity.

Ben and Ella finished up at Regina and had some fun field trips. Ben got his cell phone early so he could collect numbers for the summer and one day while I was at work he texted me to see if I could come get him early. I said yes that I had to pick up Ella for something so I'd get him when I got her and he said, "ok, I'm in Port Arthur by the playground, so look for me." Well to those of you unfamiliar with the area Port Arthur is not that close. I cracked up and immediately texted back saying, "sorry bud, you'll have to wait until the bus gets back to the school." My Ben.

Well June brought about additional change. Mark and I had been praying about discerning a new call for the last year or so and what that might look like for our family. God has faithfully provided a new call for us and we're excited about this new adventure. The kids are thrilled and that makes the transition so much easier. I'll be able to post within the next few weeks exactly where we're going. Just more red tape in this Presbytery. But if we still have readers and you're still awake at this point then we'd covet your prayers over the next few weeks and months as we transition into our new surroundings. We will be putting the house up for sale the first part of July and I will venture off to our new location so hopefully it can sell quickly without me stressing out about showing a home with 4 young inhabitants. Mark's last Sunday is slated to be the first Sunday in August and then we'll start at our new post middle of August after a week of vacation in Maryland.

So, updates, updates, updates. I will try to post more regularly and include some photos in the next post. The kids have changed a ton! Growing up too quickly for me.