CreatorWorship

Time to head south again for another training session. But this time I decided on a different route a bit out of the way for a three night visit with friends I had not seen in five years. We were amazed at how we picked up conversation as though there had not been two weeks between when we had seen each other last. And to make that more amazing (confession time), I’m not particularly good at keeping up long distance relationships. We have had occasional contact by Facebook or phone for needed prayer or listing what had happened in the last year or proof-reading articles, but these were not often. I reflect that one future day when we stand in heaven we will remember and give thanks for all of the people God put in our paths to help us along the way. Some we kept up with; others we did not, but the moments we did share were of value. So make your moments ever more valuable with conversation about your spiritual lives and learning, shared prayer and worship, all true fellowship of substance.

This couple also has three special little girls. As should be they eyed me warily, clinging to mom or dad. But as we interacted and their parents included me in family activities, the girls warmed up. Dad and mom told me to not expect one to warm up, so I was friendly but gave her some space. We played blocks and I read a few stories. I had suggested that the girls were old enough to have longer stories read to them. So I took it upon myself to ask to go to the library where they checked out “Little House in the Big Woods.” I read the first chapter; now it’s dad and mom’s turn. That should keep them busy for a while. It will increase their listening skills and attention span, properties deficient in many of their peers.

As I had been to the Naval Air Museum, the beach, and two historic forts in the area, Dad and I took an all day trip to the USS Alabama in Mobile Bay. It is being wonderfully restored by the money and efforts of the people of Alabama. I find it amazing how much money, energy, and technology goes into such a war machine for the amount of use and action it actually has. The Alabama took 2 1/2 years of 24/7 to build and had a crew of 2500, but saw action for only five years, shooting down 22 planes. It bombarded many islands in the Pacific. But what would have happened if these great ships and their convoys had not been built. Desperate times require desperate measures. War is madness and passive subjection is suicide. What is a people to do?

My friend teaches at the Roy L. Hyatt Environmental Center in Cantonment, FL. We and his girls went the next day to feed the animals and show the new guy around. The Center is in a major transition with a full teaching schedule during the school year while a new multi-purpose classrooms/exhibits building is going up. The variety of activities and creativity of my friend and his teaching colleague is inspiring. Even with many of their exhibits temporarily warehoused they have come up with new, engaging activities for their students, like a GPS treasure hunt that gets the students to solve environmental problems with science based on clues they are sent to find. They have many donated and injured animals that cannot be released as exhibits and 120 acres of swamp, bog, and woodland that has not been disturbed since WWII. They are doing real ecology with studies and allowing students to see, smell, touch, hear nature for themselves.

1 of 4 USS Alabama Screws

16″ Turret Nest

B-25, B-52, Mobile Skyline

Big Guns

Rings True

Anti-Aircraft Guns

Packing Some Punch

Comin’ atcha

Cruiseliner with Mobile Government Building in the background

But restoration funded by the people of Alabama

Modern Shipyard

C-47 (DC-3 Civilian) A workhorse in any capacity

Where are we headed Captain?

Keep regulation haircuts

Notice the overhead winch track for heavy repairs

Boiler Room

16″ Armor-piercing projectiles

USS Alabama Battleship

The fastest of the fastest (SR-71 Blackbird)

Grounded Submarine

Torpedoes Away!

Oldest

Youngest

Middle

Exhibit A

Native Florida Lobster

Corn Snake

Pitcher Plant

Actual Flower of the Pitcher Plant

Helping Daddy

High Protein Diet

Preying Mantis hanging out

Smaller Pitcher Plant

The Fun way to get around 120 acres