The King and I

Joan Gohn, Judy Brown and I went to see The king and I last night on campus and it was great!   But I could not sleep for hearing the melodies of "I whistle a Happy Tune" and " hello Young Lovers" all night!  It was an enchanting night!

It did Yul Brynner proud!  Even if we had to sit thru terrible speeches and food first, it was worth it by the performance!

A full day today!

I am at the Baptist Student center getting ready for a meeting with University officials and we are hoping for them to be delighted with what we are trying to do!  It is called communication!

Our ministry can be summed up in the story of the Good Samaritan!  Jesus also told us in this parable to meet the apparent needs which hit us in the face but be accountable to others in the process!  He did not leave the innkeeper holding the bag for the Samaritan's actions!

We want to do the same with the University!

Cultured out today!

Yesterday afternoon I went to the Japanese Tea Ceremony and Ken Heishmidt asked if I would be the guest!  I told him and the group I had better refuse since my trick knee might keep me from getting up again!

Then I had dinner last night with Dr John Bierk and we went to a new Japanese restaurant, Poi. The Saffron tea and rice bowls were wonderful!  Of course I always love to go with sarcastic John who said when he let me out:  "I must be desperate to go out with you so often!"

Some times you take a risk!

I take risks every day and I don't even think about it!  But then some need arises and I know I need to act but I get flustered and wonder about it and other people start pointing out what could happen and you begin to question your decision!   That is the scene I had to work thru this weekend!

I love my scholarship student from France, Raphael Pellenard!  He needed to attend the national meeting of Medical students in Washington Dc and had bought his ticket but the airline cancelled the trip!  He tried to get a rental car and that fell through!  At Chapel on Sunday night I learned of it and I told him to take my car which is rarely driven!   He was thrilled to death!

Then I started thinking about wrecks and liability and the long trip and did he have a valid American drivers license and I lost my joy at helping and turned it into a personal worry!  I called the insurance company, saw the license and talked to my son who said that that was the thing to do and if he had been here, he would have offered his own car!

So when Raphael came to pick up the car, there were two happy people in the garage.  No I did not pass by on the other side!  I wonder if the Good Samaritan had second thoughts before he bound up the wounds of the man in need?

Missing my sister Jennie today!

I can't believe it sometimes that she is not still up the street waiting for me to stop in so she could go off on someone or jump my case about something I should be going!   She was a wonderful person who knew what she wanted and what she wanted everyone else to do.  

The common bond all eight of us had was that we loved both of our parents and put both of them on pedestals!   Jennie and I had a common bond also and that was we never saw a Semo student who needed food or a bed desperately and we passed by on the other side!  Need was and is our most pressing ministry!   She was who she was and her table could always be expanded!

A spiritual side of everything!

Last night Sandy Moore picked me up for Chapel at Baptist Student Center and we arrived wondering how we would ever get in with our car filled with desserts!  But Bruce Gentry and Ron Robinson ran out to be Sir Galahads!

Bruce led the Chapel service and he talked about the first week of Lent:  Baptism!  Abi, short for Abiodun Liadi, of Nigeria,,played and it was quietly soothing!   And Raphael Pellenard, who has my scholarship and Angelia came in and we talked and hugged!  I had been worried about him all day and even texted him asking if he was okay and if he needed anything!  You don't have to be blood to be a grandmother!

My sister, Rose Marie's, birthday!

Rose Marie Cooper Jordan had a birthday yesterday!  I arranged it all from here and called her (after I talked to Beth about her favorite place to eat ) and told her she could invite five friends to join her at Copper Grill for lunch!  She was shocked and thrilled!  And it all worked! 

She called me back and was so happy with everything!  I can read her like a book and she went on and on about everything being perfect!  It made me happy too!

Sixteen Beds

Tennessee Ernie Ford used to sing a song called "Sixteen Tons" and it went you load 16 tons and what do u get:  another day older and deeper in debt!  Yesterday when Dr Wanda Pipkin called me and said we had 16 international students without beds and it was sleeting like mad, I thought " Wanda and Lynette are over there praying but I try to 'put feet to my prayers'".  So I put it on Facebook and we went to work pleading with people!   And they answered and met the challenge! 

We have the 16 beds in sight!  Wanda has already delivered two in the sleet!  Tammy Baldwin came over in the sleet with a big donation and a furniture dealer has agreed to get the fourteen beds on Monday for the donations we have now!

The sleet is here and it is covering everything but prayer and the spirit of giving!

Cabin Fever Gone

Yesterday I suffered from three days of cabin fever and I was rescued by my friend and hairdresser, Debbie Bickings, who came in her jeep and went to her shop for the works! So she dyed my hair and plucked my brows!  And then she had a gift card and took me to My Daddy's!  I have the best friends in the world!  Note the before and after pics!

And then I came home, had a meeting on line with Saxon Lutheran people revising their solicitation brochure and learned that Jamee Shelby had fallen in the ice and was now home on crutches and pain killer!

Mark on 7 day progress

Talked to Mark Stacy this morning and he is walking around the house and has a pedometer on his phone!  Will be able to take collar off and take a shower today!  He has had time for reflection and that is a good thing for all of us!

I told him about the book by Marcus Borg that I am reading and how it shows the way one develops a set of convictions!  When I was a child, I sat in the pew and believed fervently that God took his finger and decided the fate of the just and the unjust and assigned each a permanent fate!   I continue to emerge and evolve experientially!  Christ came to this earth to transform us as individuals and societies!   

I am cosmopolitan!

I received a pic on Fb today of Raphael, Sindupa and Nelson saying they were brothers but from different countries!  I laughed because they all had dinner at my house for my birthday and they cooked it!

Hey I might not ever been a Cosmopolitan model but I am cosmopolitan!

Cape Girardeau made national news!

Tina called me last night to tell me that it said specifically that Cape Girardeau had 12 inches of snow!  And everything did shut down!  I read Marcus Borg and watched the news about Isis beheadings in Libya!  They were both unsettling!  So roll on snow plows!  John Greenleaf Whittier penned it years ago  in Snowbound!

Now, I can see the level of snow since the street is cleared and I can wait for Gene Schippers to get here with his snowplow for my steep driveway!   Until then, back to Borg!

Snow Day!

View from front door of my house this morning:  yes, we have 6-8 inches of the white stuff!   I still expect Daddy to walk in and tell us that we don't have school today and recite "Snowbound" by Robert Frost which he knew every word!

The white lull gives me permission to take a break and stay in my pajamas!  I don't even care that my hairdresser can't get here!

My church on Sunday is same on Monday!

I don't consider myself a Baptist anymore or a Sunday kind of Christian!  But the Baptist Student Center is my church:  I minister there, I give my offering and I reach out every day to help someone!  To me, that is ministry removing the label on the can!  The vegetables inside are the same but you have to open the can to know the contents!

All around me, I work with people who are doing the same as the VBS verse I learned: "whatsoever thy hand findest to do, do it with thy might".  I try to spend every day making life easier for someone else!  When I fail, I kick the dirt off and walk on!  That, too, is ministry to my own positive psyche!

Fort A

Steve and Marsha Limbaugh bought the property next to them and tore down the apartment house and trees where Fort A stood during the Civil War!  Yesterday they raised the flag and I was invited!  I had a wonderful time even in the bitter cold!

Then we went to Katis in a private party with Steve and the fun continued!  I came home exhilarated by the day and hugging old friends and woke up remembering the joy!

Valentine, my funny....

Jim and Laurie:  I got my card today and love it!  I love the song and used to sing it  to you!   Love you bundles and happy Valentines!

Valentine delivery

What is it about roses that takes your breath away!  I answered the doorbell and the delivery woman was cold and confused like a deer in headlights!  I insisted she come in and we looked at them together and read the card from my daughter!  She even took a chocolate and said she would need that later!  

Dear Lord,  help me to remember always to Be Ye Kind, for that is what religion and faith really are!   I think of my sister, Betty often and I need to tell her that when I was a kid, she was my role model in a family where siblings were high tempered!  She was born with a kindness  and music in her soul!

Mark is out of surgery!

Just got a text from Tina that Mark is out of surgery and doing well!  Then a second text:  the doctor said he is going to feel much better!  The disc was pushing on a nerve!   Leigh, will you call Betty and read this to her!

Development 101

Had a full day yesterday with appointments teaching Development 101  at in home sessions with Jeff Long from Chateau Girardeau and later Sandi Hendricks from Sikeston Pregnancy Council!   Both are friends and I am helping them become saturated with fundraising as a way of living daily!

And it is!

The kindness of non-friends

When Bill Holland moved down here I thought of him as a St Louis Jellybean and a blowhard!  He had not gone to school here or done his dues in development!  But he has grown in the job and we have melded together!  We have lunch and talk!

I went up yesterday and he gave me a surprise!  It was a framed copy of the newspaper saying the Foundation had exceeded his goal!   Bill had it framed for me and had written in ink:   "Jane, none of this would have happened without the strong alumni base you built!"   And then he added verbally,  "I finally know what you did here during those years!"

Bill, you words and acts meant something rich to me!

New refrigerator is in!

While I was in a meeting on campus, Mark Hoffmeister was in charge of putting in my new refrigerator and unclogging my sink drains and it was done!  I came home and rejoiced and they even took my old refrigerator to Baptist Student Center! 

And I took Valentine mugs to Jerry Ford, Kevin Hampton and Trudy Lee!

Sunday morning catch up

I stayed at home all day yesterday and tried to catch up on stuff!  I called my three sisters and told them about Mark and his surgery and then my niece Carol called twice.  Mark has taken care of her since she has been diagnosed with Parkinson's!

I need to call Jamee today and see if she has anything planned for Julia's birthday! Also I have a meeting tomorrow!  I wish Ken Dobbins would go on!  We are so tired of his praising himself!

Mark Stacy to have surgery!

Late last night Mark called me to say he had been in emergency room all day!  He has a ruptured disc in his neck and he will undergo surgery on Tuesday in samedat surgery but then he will be out of commission for three months!

Yeah, my son is a doctor but he Is still my  son so pray that he will be fine!  When he hurts, I feel his pain!  

A lunch with Jeff Long

Had delightful lunch with Jeff Long yesterday at ruby Tuesday and we talked basic 101 fund raising and how connected it is to the care giving ministry!  And it is!   He was pastor at Centenary and a writer and we have much in common!  I will look forward to being on the Board with him at Chateau!

Some time the road, that is where I want to live!   I stayed busy all day and that is how I want it to be!   And I had visited with Debbie and Kathleen before I went to lunch!  Face to face meetings are important to me!   I am not a loner by nature!

A day of meetings

I should be charging as a consultant!  I am giving away my knowledge learned in a preacher's home and in a political environment and in a thirty year career as a fund raiser.  And that is the way I want it!  Fundraising is the hardest work in the world because you have to do it with sincerity and purpose and then take no credit for it!

Yesterday, and the day before, I spent all days in meeting and then laid out a temporary plan!  I met wth university officials from athletics on Tuesday and on Wednesday I met with Matt at the Bsc on campus followed by Marcie Lawson at Mo delta!  I mentor both of them because they have a heart for fundraising!   So I give them advice and encouragement and love!

A visit from Athletics

Yesterday Mark Alnutt and Nate Saverino came over for coffee!  I thought that visit might have been prompted by our dissension over the Hall of Fame Book but that was not the case!   

The visit was about people who might be interested in a better weight room facility! I have the dubious honor of knowing so many athletes so I was happy to talk and think with them about how I would proceed!   It felt like old times when Kaverman would be trying to launch a new Hall of Fame!  One of my prize days --putting them all in their place!

Enjoyed the visit!

My only thought today is gratitude!

I'm a mother first and I know it!  Sara, my daughter, called last night to say she had fallen on the ice in Canton ohio and she went to a local clinic and they sent her by ambulance to an area hospital for X-rays but it did not involve any stitches!  She has a big pump knot on her head!  I told her Mamas warning about head wounds and take it over easy for a few days!  She said she would!

Then I got in the bed and gave thanks that she was not hurt worse!

It's the simple things that get you!

I got up this morning and looked out the front door and saw a pink package and note!  It was from my neighbors, Dr Henry Sessoms and Tammy Baldwin, with a gift certificate to Olive Garden and a big bag of chocolates for an early Valentines present!  It gave me such a lift!

They are wonderful neighbors and insist that I keep their telephone number by the side of my bed in case I get sick at night! That is a comfort when you have no children here!  

The Mitchell Family

This afternoon I went to Ford and Sons to pay my respects to Denza Mitchell who was the mother of the Mitchell girls, Debra , Karen and Denise, all of whom worked at the University with me.  Denise  was my secretary in the Alumni Office! 

I saw Debra first and she said that Denise was going to be so happy to see me!  I know that I was happy to see her.   I even took her picture!