Truett Seminary @ Baylor University Commencement

Last week on the sixth anniversary of my Dad’s death, I walked across the stage at First Baptist Church Waco to receive my Doctor of Ministry degree.  I began this endeavor just a few months after my Dad’s passing and can’t help but think about how proud he would have been to see me hooded last week.  The education I received at Truett has already been beneficial to my ministry in Jay.  I am thankful for those who helped me navigate through this process even when the easy thing to do would have been to quit. 


I am grateful to my family for all they have done to see this day come.  Kate encouraged me the entire time, even when I was ready to give up.  It was not the workload of the of the degree that was overwhelming, it was balancing that workload while striving to still be a Husband, Dad, & Pastor.  Kate helped me to keep all things in balance.



The kids often had to sacrifice time with their dad while I was away for class, often two weeks at a time.  They allowed me to get away for a few days while I was working on my project and they gave up many evenings while I locked myself in the camper to complete class assignments.



I am thankful for loving and supporting parents.  This is now the third time my mom has seen me walk across the commencement stage of an academic institution.  Her continued support  has been an encouragement to me.



I am also thankful for the support of Kate’s family.  They do not treat me as an in-law, but as one of their own.  Many times they were willing to help Kate with the kids while I was away for school.  I am glad Mrs. Lori was able to be there for the commencement ceremony.



It was a unique privilege to have Matt Snowden, my first college roommate, deliver the commencement address.  Matt and I were thrown together by William Carey College in the Fall of 1997.  We had organizational and theological differences, but throughout the years our friendship has endured.  I proud to call the Snowden family my friends.

I am also thankful to the many professors at Truett who took the time to invest in my life.  Ron Cook, the director of the Doctor of Ministry program at Truett, has been a constant source of encouragement.  He has a pastor’s heart with an academic mind.  My faculty supervisor, Dr. Levi Price, provided insight and support throughout the process as well.  His guidance helped me to formulate the process that would become my doctoral project.  My pastor, friend, and field supervisor, Dr. Howard Gates, has helped me to become the minister I am today.  He has helped me to understand both the hardships and the blessings of serving a church. 

There are so many others who have helped me throughout this process.  I am grateful for all the prayers and support.  Below are a few picture from the day. 
   

Receiving my degree from Baylor’s President, Ken Starr.

Receiving my doctoral hood.

Standing in front of Truett Seminary on Baylor University’s campus.

Inside the chapel at Truett Seminary.

Truett Seminary’s May 2013 graduating class.

Easter 2013

Again this year after Easter Sunday services we piled into the car and headed to Mobile to eat lunch and have an Easter egg hunt with the cousins.

 

Just as in years past, we hurried to take our family photos in our color coordinated outfits. Other than beach pictures it is the only time of the year that we match outfits. The azaleas were the perfect backdrop this year!

 

Isabelle…

 

Anna…

 

Luke…

 

Nacky with the Isabelle, Anna, Luke, and Riley…

 

The Reynolds family two days before Jackson was born…

 

Our family…

 

I love this picture of Will.

 

Just the two of us…

 

My three. We have several pictures of the girls kissing his cheeks. He doesn’t enjoy taking these type of photos, but he is going to have to deal with it. This is our thing now.

 

The Easter Egg hunt was after lunch. When they finally got the big kids up from the table to hide the eggs.  Isabelle is getting so tall.

 

Luke was in a hurry…

 

Until he found this egg.  Now he is thinking,  “How am I supposed to get that one?”

Anna didn’t find these eggs very challenging at all.

 

Until she got to the ones that were up pretty high… She had to work for this one.

 

And of course, as is the case with everything that goes on around this house, the big boys had to take it too far.  They hid eggs on the roof.  Instead of letting the little kids get them, I made the boys stay up there until the little ones pointed them out.

 

Here are my two brothers. Look at all that grey hair on Will Reynolds’ head! Wow!

 

When it was all said and done, they had baskets full of things. No candy this year since Luke is a diabetic, but lots of little junky treasures and coins for the piggy banks.

 

Riley didn’t care too much about the eggs, she wanted to pick all of Nana’s flowers.

 

Another beautiful Easter Sunday celebrating Jesus’ resurrection and our freedom from sin as a result of it!

Isabelle’s Speech

A few weeks ago, I had decided that I was tired of all of the busy work that the teachers and school send home with the kids  that end up causing more work for the parents (I am very busy these days and didn’t need the extra work). You know…like decorate this poster kid to look just like you (cutting yarn hair, digging out craft supplies, finding an old shirt to cut up and decorate with), send out this Flat Stanley (decorating the  paper doll and begging a family member to do something cool with it and send it back for the class to look at), etc.   The very next day after my complaining about this, Isabelle comes home with a paper about the Florida Tropicana Speech Contest that is NOT optional. My fourth grader had to write and give a speech! Ridiculous!  Needless to say, I was not a happy camper.

 

The good news for me was that Isabelle came home all pumped that her daddy does speeches every week so he was going to be good at helping her. And like a good daddy he did just that.

 

Isabelle picked the topic of love.  Will had recently preached a series of sermons on Love and Isabelle has been dealing a lot lately with kids picking on and being mean to each other at school. So this subject is near and dear to her this year.

 

Will helped Isabelle to get an outline together and come up with an organized introduction paragraph. She researched by looking up definitions, listening to Will’s sermons online again, and looking up verses in the Bible that she wanted to use. She filled in the information and wrote the rest of the speech all by herself. Her daddy helped her read over it and make sense out of the few spots that didn’t sound right.

 

She worked very hard and after giving the speech she won third place in her class.  The top three from each of the fourth, fifth, and sixth grade classes then had to give their speeches in the auditorium for judges, those grade level students and teachers, and the parents of all of the speakers.

 

Isabelle did very well. She was nervous and very quiet, but she tried her best. Even though she didn’t place in this part of the competition, I am very proud of her! I probably would have cried every night and begged my mom not to make me do it.

 

Here is the video of her giving her speech this morning. It is very quiet and you will have to turn your sound up all the way and make sure there is no noise in the room to be able to hear her.  Also, Luke is whispering the whole time and making noises, so you will hear that during the video as well.

 

 

 

For those of you that don’t want to listen to the video, here is photo of Isabelle during the speech.

 

Love That Disciplines

Kate and I created wakworld.com nearly ten years ago as we were preparing for Isabelle's birth.  We wanted a way to share stories and photos with our family.  Over the years, wakworld.com has taken on various designs. (You can see some of the various designs of the site by visiting The Wayback Machine)  With the popularity of other social media sites like Facebook, our posts on wakworld.com has become less frequent.  While we might go months without posting anything, I still enjoy using this site as a way of sharing our stories with those who care enough to read them.

I have decided that a new way for me to make regular post to this site is to share the audio from some of my favorite sermons.  I don't plan on posting every sermon I preach to this site as it seems rather redundant since they are available on our church website at www.jayfbc.org/sermons.  Every now and then, though, there is a message that makes a particular impact on my life.  Yesterday's message was one of those sermons.  I have been preaching through a series that explores the various aspects of God's love and challenges us to exemplify them.  The series is entitled "Love That..."  Yesterday's focus was "Love That Disciplines."  Throughout my preparation for this message I was reminded of the responsibility that Kate and I have when it comes to raising our kids.  I am also thankful for the discipline demonstrated by my mom and dad.

You can listen to the message below.

Christmas Program 2012

Mrs. Robbi worked hard with the kids to teach them their parts, the songs, and most of all get them to behave long enough to hear anything she had to say. All of the kids did a great job and tried their best.

 

Here is Isabelle’s solo. She was very nervous but did great. She was a little quiet so it might be hard to hear what she was saying. This song also was one of the two that Luke was supposed to sing in.  He loves to sing and knew the words because I have heard him sing them a hundred times. Mrs. Robbi and the other workers told me that he usually behaves and sings and does what he is supposed to.

 

Of course, though, it wouldn’t be a Jay First Baptist Children’s Choir Musical if one of the preachers kids didn’t do something to completely embarrass their parents. This year it was Luke’s turn.  He refused to take a nap yesterday so I thought all of his behavior issues was because of no nap. As it turns out, when we left the church for snacks at the fellowship hall, his blood sugar was 57. He was having a low blood sugar and didn’t have the energy to even sit up towards the end of the song. And this was the last song of the night. He had been up and down the steps to sit in my lap several times. Most of the night he just laid on the steps of the stage.

 

Unfortunately, I have no excuse for the finger up the nose portion of the evening. He said it itched. What can I say?

 

 

I thought that song was beautiful! Nothing better than a group of kids singing happy birthday to Jesus!

 

Anna is still unwilling to take a solo. But she is making progress. This year she moved up front to do an echo part with some of her friends. She barely sang, but she did attempt to hunch over like they were supposed to.  Progress….

 

 

 

 

It was a fun night. Thanks Mrs. Robbi for all the work that you do with our children.

Let The Adventure Begin...

Well....it has been a crazy couple of days to say the least. For those of you that don't know, Luke was diagnosed yesterday with Type 1 diabetes. We have learned a lot over the last 24 hours and I am sure we still have so much more to learn. But for now, the Dietician and the Diabetes Educator have taught us all that they can teach us today. I thought I would answer a few of the questions that we are most often getting from our friends and family while I have a few minutes.

What Happened? I noticed that around the time when the girls started school this year, Luke began to ask for more food and more drinks (in particular) than normal. He was crankier than usual and just all around not the same kid. I accredited this to the fact that his sisters were gone all day, he was bored, and just wanted entertainment. Over the last two weeks, his sleeping has been awful, his naps were getting shorter, his bedtime routine was becoming a problem (whereas he used to just go to bed and fall asleep with no fuss), and he wasn't staying asleep (he'd wake up and whine and need a drink; and even then it wasn't just a matter of him going right back to sleep like he used to do).

Last weekend, we took a surprise trip to Disney World with the kids and Grandma. We drove on Thursday night and into Friday morning. When he should have been sleeping he was waking up and pitching a fit for a drink every 20 minutes; which were then followed by bathroom breaks 20 minutes later. If we tried to tell him no drinks, he just screamed hysterically (no calming him down). This is very unusual for my little Luke. His mood became more irritable and liquid dependent throughout that Friday. Friday night was even worse and we got only a few hours of sleep. On Saturday while in the parks, he again just wanted to drink constantly! Even if we distracted him and didn't give him a drink, we stopped at a bathroom every 20 minutes and he peed a gallon. Finally we figured, if we are stopping anyway, we'll just give him the drinks to keep him happy. And by this point, he wasn't getting sodas or anything sugary. We were only giving him water because of how much he was drinking. This in itself is unusual. A few weeks ago, he wouldn't touch water. Now he was drinking 12 to 15 glasses a day plus three or four glasses of milk. Grandma mentioned that maybe we should just mention it to the doctor because those are the symptoms that her doctors ask her about regarding diabetes. And again, it was obvious that this was not his normal behavior. This started me thinking (well...to be honest, worrying) about my days as a gestational diabetic and that if he was having high or low blood sugars, it was no wonder he was so cranky. Will's words were, "Mom, don't tell her that stuff, just tell her that everything is fine." Amazing how men want to exaggerate everything until it comes to the health of their children.
    
Tuesday, Will talked with Robbi at the church and she mentioned that some of those symptoms were the same as what her grandson had when he had some kidney issues. The drinking and peeing continued Tuesday and then Tuesday night was so bad that he ended up in the bed with us and that never happens. So, we decided that we just needed to have our fears addressed so that if nothing was wrong we could do the tough love parenting and not feel bad about it. We really thought that we'd have a quick trip to the doctor and she would say we were overreacting and send us on our merry way. Of course, though, after peeing constantly for five days, when we need Luke to give us a urine sample at the doctors office it was about near impossible. 45 minutes later, after we get him to oblige, the doctor comes in and says, "well there was glucose in his urine and some keytones evidenced. I am waiting on a call from the Pediatric Endocrinologist to see what to do next. So, just make yourselves comfortable we could be a while." They did a finger stick to get a blood glucose reading. The doctor came back in and said, "It was 377, I just want to prepare you that usually when we diagnose new onset diabetes in children, we admit them to the hospital for a few days."

Let the phone calls begin.... Called my mom to come take care of the girls for a few days (she then had her own phone calls to make to prepare her household). Called the church to let them know that Will would be out a few days and we would not make it to AWANA (Bill then had phone calls to make to cover Wednesday service and AWANA stuff for us). Called Will's mom (she then made phone calls to let that side of the family know). Called Robbi to arrange pick-up for the kids from school.

Now for Sacred Heart....we walk right in and were put immediately into a room (better than checking into a hotel; no wait!) After the blood gas was drawn (which he still has a big cut from) we moved onto the IV. After three different tries and two nurses attempting the sticks in the wrists, we moved on to a third nurse and another stick in the inside of his elbow. This time she got it! Oh, but wait, she didn't tape it, so it came out. So, now, we have a fifth stick with an IV needle. Needless to say, by this time, he was crying, I was crying, and Will was in the corner trying not to pass out. Uncle Mike had shown up and he was there discussing the Vein Finder machine with the other nurses in the room. (For those of you that know him, you'll find that amusing.) Once that was over we went back to the room to work with the diabetes educator in figuring out how to manage and control his diabetes.

 


After the first finger stick and the first insulin shot, Luke learned that every time someone wheels something into the room, it usually means something not nice is coming. At some point last night, when Will was checking for keytones and had something in his hand, Luke looked at him and said, "Are you gonna cut me daddy? Please don't cut me." If that doesn't break your heart, then you don't have a soul!

During our education portion of the days, we learned that Type 1 diabetes is an auto-immune disease and for some reason, the body decides to attack the cells that are producing insulin. After it destroys all of those cells the body doesn't have a way to produce insulin and there is no correction for this. This means insulin shots for the rest of his life.




They don't have any idea why this happens, there is no rhyme or reason for it. Nothing we did could have prevented it, caused it, or slowed it down. Nothing he ate or didn't eat could have helped. It is random and unexplainable. In Type 2 diabetes, the body still makes insulin, it just can't get the insulin to the cells that need it. This type is preventable, curable and can be controlled with diet. Type 1 can not be. Type 1 diabetes is NOT caused by a family history of Type 2 diabetes. It is no one's fault.




Our goals to get out of the hospital are to get the keytones out of the urine, go through all of the education classes, and get Luke's sugars regulated so that we will have a starting point for going home. The keytones are out of the urine, the education classes have been completed, and now we are just trying to get the sugars regulated so that we can go home. They are still swinging from the 120's to the 3 and 400's after he eats. We need them to stay between 80 and 180 most of the time.

Thank you all for your prayers and concerns! Thank you to everyone that is helping out with the girls and church. Please pray for the girls. They know that he has diabetes, but they are not sure why he has to be in the hospital and they want him home. They are worriers like their Mama.

Thanks again for the prayers, we hope to be home tomorrow.