"A Benefit of ALS & Trip to Southwestern Florida"
Well, we're heading back to Ohio North (affectionately known as the freezer and snow ice machine) from Florida (even more affectionately known as Ohio South). Despite my posting only sermons these last few weeks, several blog possibilities have been being considered and germinating in my mind. I'd like to blame this lack of focus on the unavailability of time, physical energy, motivation, or/and pure enjoyment of the weather and food. My best thought would be a little of all.
This is our third consecutive month-long visit to Southwestern Florida since my ALS diagnosis in August, 2010. The first winter we took trips to Vancouver Island with some ONU friends and then Hawaii with a clergy friend and his spouse. We've also taken a cruise with our family and Dorothy's sister's family, as well as journeyed to Williamsburg three times, New York City, Gatlinburg, Michigan, Pennsylvania and went with the church mission team to New Orleans.
Each place and trip has its own memories and unique offerings. Do you want to know one of the things I enjoy about southwestern Florida is? There are a lot of us (Ohioans) in the area (thus the Ohio South reference above)! While we don't know everyone from Ohio in the area we've discovered our share of family and friends. I've started compiling a list so I donn't miss folks. I despise neglecting to iclude people.
As most are aware I still enjoy my basketball (watching college especially) and know my Ohio family and friends well enough to be confident they do as well. As a result I've chosen each year to organize a get-together at one of Ft. Myers' Sports bars. Each event has been well-attended and each year we find new folks before and after (to my chagrin) the event.
This year, knowing that I can barely carry on a conversation with one person let alone 40, I pondered why I still wanted to do it. And then I remembered that one of my top five strengths on the Gallup StrengthFinder survey I took a couple of years ago was arranger. I absolutely love getting people together - seeing them mingle and strike up conversations and meet new people! I find it interesting about myself since I am somewhat of an introvert. It's really quite easy to pull off. All I do is post on Facebook and send an email to those I have email addresses for. I rely on word of mouth for the rest.
Do you mind if I share with you some about the group that gathered this year? If you mind, I guess you'd better stop reading now, because here I go! Besides Dorothy and me, her brother and sister and her sister's husband, my cousin and his wife (who came down for a week to help us drive back), the group included four dentists (our Urbana and Lima family dentists and two from Maple Grove and their spouses, the couple who served as the youth coordinators in the first church I served after graduating from seminary, their daughter who was in the youth group and was on the age-group track team I started and coached in that community (Mad River Missiles), people from the Urbana (4), Lima (9), Linden (2), and Maple Grove (4) churches I served, a couple that moved to Florida over 30 years ago from Lima and their son who ran on another age-group track team I started and coached (the Northern Ohio Wings), the pastor with whom I did my student pastoring while in seminary and his wife, four couples from Putnam County including one of Dorothy's cousins who was just one of the best basketball players ever to play the game in Putnam County and an absolute super nice guy, some friends from high school who recently moved to Florida, a man who stayed with us at Annual Conference, and friends of Dorothy's sister and husband who've become friends of ours as well. There were some who weren't able to make it and with whom we were able to spend some time with as well - two couples of our longest friends from ONU and a Worthington UMC couple. Quite a collection, huh! It was fun and interesting. And, the Buckeyes won!!
Before I was able to finish this post we met another cousin and one of the kids from my Lima Trinity YF and her husband at our favorite Atlanta restaurant which she introduced us to our first year heading to Florida - Pappasito's. What a wonderful visit we had with these close relatives and friends that we don't have the opportunity to see very often! It helped heal the wounds of the Buckeye loss in the afternoon. Oh, and the three of them discovered that they attend the same church and recognized each other!
My point: It's a small world, friends! And while I despise ALS I really appreciate the people who are willing to be with us in spite of my awkwardness, inabilities, and lack of conversation. Go world!!! And thanks, everyone!
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