Want to know where Tom is really???

The last time I saw him he was here.

Says he's sleeping here.

He traded us for these guys.


But I'm sure ready to have him home!

I think the women at TSC are amazing!

I know, I should be writing about the first day of school (and I will--hopefully before the last), or I should tell you all about my trip to Spanish Wells, Bahamas and swimming with the dolphins (and I will because it was one of the most incredible things I've ever done) but right now I want to talk about the most amazing women in the world.
They go to my church. But that's not what makes them amazing. It's what they do when they're not at church that amazes me. Kari's the wife of a soldier who's serving in Iraq. He responsible for over 300 Iraqi soldiers. Kari's suffered multiple losses in her family this year (grandfather, aunt, more...) and she's had to be here while he's there--he's had to travel two hours to get 30 minutes on the phone just to talk to her! And Kari praises God. She praises Him for holding her, for watching over her, for leading her husband as he baptizes men in Iraq, for teaching her more than she ever knew she needed to know...Kari amazes me.
Melissa amazes me. I'm not going to say another word about it--just go to her blogspot and read for yourself!(She's on my list)
Angela amazes me. She leads the preschool ministry at our church, but a long time ago she kept the resource room in order when I led the preschool ministry at our church. To see how Angela has yielded her life to God, and allowed Him to work through her-you'll just have to come to our church, put your baby in one of our classes and see for yourself! But what I love about Angela is that she hasn't met an obstacle she's not prepared to conquer (including skis behind my boat).
Mendy amazes me. She serves faithfully and thoroughly!! This summer she coordinated one of the greatest gatherings of women we've ever experienced at our summer Bible study! She covered every detail and begged us to never mention a word of this to anyone. That amazes me...
Kathleen and Alicia and Jill amaze me. They took off to Africa and wrapped their arms around those African children and loved them and got covered with dirt and came home exhausted and cry when you ask them to talk about their experience.
Then, the women who shared their testimonies at our Bible study this summer amaze me, my dear friend Kate, my new friend Lisa, my fun friend Kimberly, the list goes on and on--everyone's still talking about it and I just can't get over how God is working in the lives of these women!!Truly I am most blessed--to live, work, and share the building of this piece of the kingdom with such amazing women!

I know, they are the women in my very own church. And many pastors wives are terrified of that group--but not me. They simply amaze me. I LOVE the fact that they're my sisters, that they're my friends and that they display JESUS in such a beautiful way.

We WON!! Middle TN Thunderbolts, World Series CHAMPS!

We Won!! Sunday afternoon we beat the same team we had to beat Saturday to stay in the play-offs. It was HOT, we were HOT! And the girls got to win a trophy bigger than us. I'm just here to say that watching your daughter play ball is the hardest and perhaps one of the most rewarding experiences in all the world! I can go into more detail later. I'll download a pic soon.

A few more pictures

Okay, so I've learned how to do video, and now I'm learning how to do pictures. Here's a few more from our Gatlinburg trip!

Gatlinburg, softball and my neices

So, I've been trying to pretend this is my dairy--and make that entry daily. But, it just doesn't happen! If any of you know me, you know I AM NOT A NIGHT PERSON! Once 9PM rolls around I'm beat! My mind is mush, and my body--is most happy if I'm in the prone position. Of course, I rise with the roosters. Much to the chagrine of my hotel room companions. They tell me that I wake them up when I click away on my computer early in the morning (if you call 8:57AM early!) but I'm convinced they are sleeping soundly. I hear them breathing!!
Speaking of hotel room companions--this has been a great trip. I traded Kaleigh and TJ for my neices Alec and Kes. Here's a picture of them making the trip to my house. (No, they didn't ride all the way up here in the back of that truck!)
We're in Pigeon Forge to watch Mikel play softball. So far we've eaten pancakes, visited the aquarium, laughed at the Comedy Barn, waded in the creek and seen Mikel play two games. Hmmm--nothing like a week of watching softball, huh?! Since we won both our games and no one has scored against us--we are the number 1 seed. That means that we don't play ball today (Thursday) until 7PM tonight. Then, if we win--we may not even play on Friday. It's hard to remember we're here to play ball! We're hoping for a World Series win to finish this season. Only that game will most likely be played on Sunday, and poor Tom. He lives for this--and he has to be home on Sunday to preach. You better believe that if Mikel does anything amazing or if our win comes during his sermon--we're calling. We'll interrupt the program for an important announcement.
Then...it will be time to reshuffle the deck and retrieve Kaleigh and TJ. This is typical of our family's life. On Sunday (after the World Series championship--hopefully) I'll travel to Atlanta, Kaleigh will meet us there (at Mammer and PopPop's house) and Tom will bring TJ to Chattanooga to meet us on our way. Because...we are on our way to our favorite place in all the world--Spanish Wells, Bahamas. (I'll tell you all about SW in another blog). BUT, in order to save considerable amounts of money the kids and I are flying to Miami from Atlanta and Tom is cashing in credit card points on his free ticket from Nashville. So--somehow we have to collect our family from the four corners of the world and all be on those two planes come Monday morning.
I'll keep you posted on all of this...the connections, the World Series, and the Dixie Stampede (which we plan to attend today). Just in case you want to know the details of our lives. :) (Why else do you read these things???)

Ever had one of those days?

Last summer we came up with the world's greatest 12 year old bday party. Tom and I took TJ and a few of his friends to our friend Wayne's house on Smith Lake in Alabama, and we parasailed!! (We also tubed, skied and surfed, played that train game you can play with dominoes and ate BROWNIES!!) But our main goal was to experience the sensation of being one of those little bows that dangles below a kite. Now, I know that I am NOT a kid anymore, and I know that when I was growing up in my family the most adventurous thing we ever did was skip rocks into the lake without wearing life jackets. But since I met and married Tom McCoy, my life has taken a turn for ADVENTURE with the emphasis being on all sorts of life-defying activities. In fact, I've written an entire book on my adventure of snow skiing (brief infomercial--that book is coming out in the Lifeway Bookstores this Fall, Women Embracing Life...All of It!). These adventures have included jumping off 30 foot cliffs into mountain streams in Arizona (well--not me, but watching two of my children do it), and diving with sharks in the warm waters off shore in the Bahamas, mountain climbing vertical rocks, and the list could go on. I've done LOTS of amazing things--even learned to water ski (slalom) after 35. But I don't think I've ever impressed others quite as much as I did when I parasailed last May. The first video shows how it works. After that, you will see how it worked for me.

And Mary pondered these things in her heart...

There is a phrase in Scripture that I often relate to; "...and Mary pondered these things in her heart..." Did you know my first name is Mary? It's a family name--my mother's first name is Mary, and I think my great-grandmother's name was Mary. So, I kind of read this phrase as a personal one.

And there are many times I "ponder these things in my heart." So many things.

19 years ago Tom and I went to Ridgecrest Conference Center to attend Sunday School week. Our trip was paid for by Earl and Jo Waldrup who were serving with us at our mission church. Tom took full advantage of every opportunity to rub elbows with the "great SS leaders" of that day. Harry Piland, Andy Anderson, Art Burchman, Larry Shotwell and others. We came home filled to overflowing with dreams, visions and plans! We also came home with the privilege of being "adopted" by Harry Piland. Through the early years of our ministry we were consistently encouraged and "coached" in how to grow a healthy church through "Sunday School."

So, when Tom was invited to preach this past weekend for the SS conference, and we took our worship team, 6 of our pastors and 120 or so other of our SS leaders with us--it was a time to "ponder." How did I get from one of 1500 plus people worshipping in the Spilman auditorium in 1989 to the wife of the preacher in 2008? How did we go from 3 SS classes back then with an average attendance of 30 or so to over 100 classes today with attendance pressing past 1500?

The slide show starts in my mind...the first Sunday of our young adult class, the summer I left to do GA Camps and gave the class to the Randy Coffman, Tom encouraging our people over and over and over again that if they didn't divide their groups we could never multiply...the business meeting when we argued over how much it would cost to rent a portable building for more space (because we were pressing toward the 80% rule). And the day we moved into that portable building. I see us making applesauce in my electric skillet in the preschool class, and playing a game in the 5th-6th grade class--I see each of our buildings open for their first Sundays, and remember how TJ scooted nearly across the TS Road before I found him (when he was a toddler and we were building another of our SS spaces)...the slides go on and on and on.

So, we went to Ridgecrest this weekend, Tom preached "the glory down" our worship team sang, 130 of our church members worshipped with abandon

and "Mary pondered these things in her heart..."