Friends:          Wow, Reg, back from yet another one of those cross-country trips.  This must make at least 30 or 40 in the last 5 years.  In many ways it sounds similar to the others – a mixture of professional lectures and meetings, visits to friends, a little outdoor recreation, and of course if there’s a Nazarene university nearby, you are very likely to be found there at some point … can you pick out anything that was especially unique about this particular trip?

RF:     Well, first of all I think your count is about right.  And I’ve thought about that last question a little bit … I guess I’d say this is the first time I can think of, that two very special friends of mine, totally unknown to each other, from completely different corners of my life and history – landed squarely and simultaneously in what you might call the interpersonal and spiritual “centerpiece day” of the whole trip – in this case the Sunday in Nashville.  It made for an incredible day, beautiful but entirely outside the scope of my plans.

Friends:          This sounds intriguing.  Tell us the story!

RF:     Believe it or not, the story actually goes back to 1982, the year Annette and I were married in Corvallis, Oregon.  The pastor who married us is Dr. Richard (“Rich”) Parrott.  He had been Annette’s pastor for three years at the time of our wedding.  If you are familiar with the Parrott name either through Rich’s dad, who was president of Olivet Nazarene University in the 1970s and 80s, or more likely through the books on marriage written by Rich’s younger brother and sister-in-law Drs. Les and Leslie Parrott of Seattle, then you have the right family.  Annette and I had been out of contact with Rich for more than 20 years, but we’ll never forget the premarital counseling he gave us, nor his role on our wedding day.  I can still hear his first words when my bride arrived at the head of the center aisle:  “Annette … you’re beautiful!”   

In 1985, still well “before kids”, Annette and I moved across the country to Frankfort, Kentucky.  On a September Sunday evening, we walked unannounced into the church that would become ours for 12 years and were introduced to Pastor Kevin Ulmet.  That night was the beginning of a dearly valued friendship that would take many pages to describe.  Suffice to say that from then through his 6 remaining years in Kentucky, 8 in South Carolina, 11 in Chicago, and this summer on to Nashville, we have remained very close.  As you know from the prayer itinerary, I arranged to bunk with Kevin in Nashville from Oct 20-24.  He’s “batching it”, as wife Karen is still in Chicago till Christmas.  

I would never have suspected that Rich and Kevin were acquainted other than by reputation.  Undoubtedly, Annette and I showed Kevin our wedding picture album when he was our pastor in the 1980s, but he could not have been expected to remember the officiant.  Likewise, during our brief visits with Rich during those years (in Detroit MI and Salem OR), we probably told him who our pastor was, but again, not a factoid even Rich’s brilliant mind would have stored.

I have no idea how Rich can have been on the faculty of Trevecca Nazarene University in Nashville for 3-plus years and I be unaware of it.  He and I talked about it last weekend and we have no explanation.  I can only guess that God wanted Kevin to be the one to make the connection.  To make an already long story just a little shorter, Kevin and I were in one of our late-night “man-to-man” convos my first night in Nashville; he described his last four months including his interview trip, acceptance of the Nashville pastorate, move, and adjustment to the new ministry.  (Well, I say new, but it’s “Homecoming” in the truest sense for Kevin since he, Karen and the older 2 of his 3 daughters are Trevecca alums and his connections are as deep and active as mine are at NNU).  He couldn’t tell the story without mentioning a new and very special friend he had met in the process …

Most of you are familiar enough with the interconnected “family” of the Church of the Nazarene that you’d say I ought not to have been so surprised.  I can only say that if I had tried to guess whom Kevin was talking about, I would have gone through at least 30 names before I would have guessed Rich Parrott.  By Sunday we had at least 4 men plus a whole Sunday School class marveling at the surprise, not to mention Annette, on the other end of the phone.

The second “surprise” was someone whose appearance on the scene was not quite as shocking but a special blessing nonetheless.  I had waited to text my friend, TNU senior Allison Lafoe, until arrival on campus because I wasn’t quite sure what the weekend would look like and when I could see her.  But 30 seconds after I hit the send button, my cell phone rang and it was Allison: “Mom’s here!”

Here again we have to go back a little ways.  Kevin had led Doug Lafoe, and his fiancée Ann, to Christ, and married them, in Kentucky when we were all together in the 80s.  Allison was born in 1989, sleeping in the same church newborn nursery with our son Dawson, Kevin’s 2^nd daughter Carissa, and six other infants (we knew how to grow the church in those days!)  In the four years following Kevin’s departure from Kentucky (1991-95), the church could not afford both a full time pastor and a youth pastor, so Ann and I led the youth group as lay ministers.  This past decade, Doug and Ann have hosted me on at least four visits to Frankfort, and Doug sometimes takes me to call on men in the community who are suspected of needing some level of spiritual encouragement.

So, Ann’s and my 4-day visits to Nashville coincided, without either of us planning or even knowing about it.  When Kevin learned what was going on, he helped me engineer it so that he, Ann, Allison, Rich, his wife Shirley, and I all got to do church and lunch together.  We patched Annette in by phone and she got to share a little of the excitement.   

Friends:  Wow.  But looking at your itinerary, that’s not nearly all of what happened in Nashville in the four days.

RF:  Nope.  In between and among were a volleyball game, the Speer Family Legacy Extravaganza, a Christian medical meeting near Vanderbilt, a men’s breakfast, a mini-golf match with Kevin, a “father-daughter date” with Cassie Langjahr, and three lectures at the Trevecca science department. 

Friends:          Speer family?  Didn’t they stop singing together more than 12 years ago?

RF:     Yes, you’re right, although several members of their “singing family” still sing professionally.  Some of these are blood relatives, others not, but they all have a very close knit family relationship.  You’d have to know the Speers.  There’s more than I can relate here, but the Trevecca leadership, working with some of their older alumni, brought about ten Speer-connected musicians together for a day of eating, music, and visiting for over 600 people at Trevecca Community Church.  I thoroughly enjoyed it, though at 55 I was about the youngest guest there.  Sue Ellen Chenault Dodge and Allison Durham Speer have been two of my favorite singers for quite a while. 

Friends:          Was there any connection between Trevecca and the Christian medical meeting?

RF:     We made a connection.  I knew of the Christian Medical Fellowship (this is affiliated with CMDA, for those of you who know that world) in Nashville through my connection nationally, and I thought it would be a great idea to get the Trevecca pre-meds connected with them.  So their big monthly “Friday night fellowship” landed on the date I was there, and having made arrangement beforehand (though I knew none of the hosts in person) I took two TNU faculty and three students over there.  At first they found it a little difficult to mix, but by the time we left they were getting e-mail addresses and sharing experiences and I could hardly pry them loose to go home. 

Friends:          Remind us, who is Cassie?

RF:     Cassie Langjahr is a young lady very close to our family, an outstanding graduate of our Colorado Springs Bible quiz program, former teammate and valued friend to both my son and my daughter.  Cassie is now a Trevecca sophomore.  She is the one for whom we held a “farewellebration” ceremony here in the Springs a year ago in August, at which time we blessed her with the challenge to move from becoming a disciple of Christ, to a disciple-maker.  We are seeing this happen right before our eyes.  She is head quizzing coach at Trevecca Community Church now.

Friends:          Why did you choose this particular weekend to go to Nashville?

RF:     Well, when I first picked it out, I did not know about the Speer event, I didn’t know Kevin would be living there (and certainly didn’t know it would be his only weekend with even a smidgen of free time in the whole fall), I didn’t know about the Friday medical fellowship, I certainly didn’t know about Ann or Rich, and though I was hoping I could lecture in the science department I didn’t yet know if the arrangement would work.  I did know that there was a volleyball game on the schedule.  I simply went to Trevecca because I had to lecture at a conference in Florida on October 17 and 18, and it was the weekend immediately following.  Using an Atlanta-centered itinerary as I do, it made it pretty easy to go there.  And if I need to use a weekend productively in between job engagements, and there is a Nazarene university community within reach?  C’mon.

Friends:          If you were arrested and convicted for loving Christian higher education, I think we could find enough evidence for a conviction.

RF:     You wouldn’t have to.  I’d plead guilty.

Friends:          You wanted prayer about that talk in Florida the first night.   How did that go?

RF:     Very well, in almost every way.  You prayed that my flight connection would work and that I would make it on time.  I did.  The only delays were a very long line at the rental car counter, and that I had to go back to my car in the convention center parking lot after my pin drive.  But I was in the room and ready to go 5 minutes before the start of the dinner and panel discussion.  I’ll give myself an A-minus on the talk from a technical standpoint.  It was the first time I’d ever given this talk, and a lot of the material was from another author, so maybe I was the least bit “jerky”.  I knocked the projector power cord out of the laptop and it took me and the tech 2 or 3 minutes to find the problem.  Fortunately I had told the audience to stand up for a stretch break right then.  There weren’t any problems with opposition or tough questions, in fact all the questions went to other panelists and not me.  But my bosses were happy and thought I was a good team player. 

Friends:          How did Annette do during your absence?

RF:     Well, this one was probably the toughest she’s had.  There was a reason – she got a respiratory virus that caused an 8-day bout with acute bronchitis.  She was miserable physically, and had to stay at home alone for most of a week.  One friend from the neighborhood was kind to bring in some medications for her.  We did pretty well staying in touch by phone, though my schedule and the time difference (1 to 2 hrs depending on which part of the trip I was on) made it a challenge.  By my 8^th day, she was considerably better and I was considerably relieved in my mind.  Some of you prayed for her specifically, and for that I thank you very much.  Interestingly, I caught two days of the infection myself.  My second day in Florida was a little rough, but I thankfully didn’t get a direct hit.  Just enough so that I could reassure Annette that I wasn’t guessing about what she had.  In my mind, that was enough of a positive to offset my own discomfort.

Friends:          We’re always interested to know how it goes in the Knoxville office, because we know it could have implications about your job future.  And, we wonder how many more times we will have to pray for you to have another job when your current contract ends!

RF:     I had a very busy and productive day in the Knoxville office, finishing up a Wikipedia entry on embryo donation (read it if you want!), learning how to host a webinar, and getting the staff organized on a couple of other projects.  I negotiated one more job task which will pay me a little extra in 2012, making my current contract the best one of the six years I’ve been doing this.  I knew this might be possible, but refrained from mentioning it until it was reality.  But the Knoxville people have been very careful to make no promises beyond August 2012.

Friends:          Did your plan work out to get some outdoor rest on that last day?  Were you in a place where there were beautiful fall leaves?  And, did you catch any?

RF:     It worked out, though my time at Fall Creek Falls got a late start because the Lord led me to call on a family in Fairfield Glade TN that morning.  I did catch a few leaves.  I also prayed through the items that I needed to.  It was all too short though.  That place is absolutely gorgeous in the fall, and I didn’t have nearly the time to enjoy it that I would have liked.  Annette would like to visit that park with me sometime in the future, and I’m hopeful to take her there.

Friends:          Well, thanks for sharing all this with us!  And, welcome home!

RF:     Thanks so much.  I sincerely mean it when I say I cannot do this without your prayer support.

Friends:          Where do you go next?

RF:     Nampa, Idaho – to celebrate NNU Homecoming, and see our son Dawson and daughter-in-law Lydia.  Annette will be with me.