Wednesday, June 11, 2003

Groundbreaking Sunday is only 18 days away! The tent is on order and will be set up on Saturday the 28th. We’re borrowing a portable baptistry from the Rock Church to baptize 12 people that day. Lots of people will be bringing special offerings, including several folks who are bringing their piggie banks and loose change jars that day.

Does the phrase “See Rock City” mean anything to you? If you traveled at all in the South in the 50s or 60s or 70s and into the 80s, you saw that familiar sign painted on barns near major highways. Rock City is a famous tourist spot located on top of Lookout Mountain near Chattanooga, TN. I used to see those signs everywhere when I was growing up. Over the weekend Marlene’s brother Mark Wolery (who was in town with his wife Ruth for Nick’s graduation) gave us a wonderful present. Last summer there was a family reunion in Havre, Montana (where Marlene was born). While we were there, Mark took some very old wood from an abandoned barn on the family property. He made a bird house with the wood and painted the words “See Rock City” on both sides of the sloping roof. We put it on our porch during the graduation party on Saturday night. Most people saw it and had no idea what the phrase meant. But everyone who had vacationed down South 10 or 15 years ago recognized it immediately. The bird house has been permanently anchored in a place of honor in one of the flower beds in our back yard.