Not your typical Sunday evening...hopefully

Forgive me, those of you who were there, if my order of events is a little off.

The evening started as most Sunday evenings do around here with Andrea, Melissa and I in the den watching Extreme Makeover - Home Edition. A lot of the evening's events happened in my peripheral vision as we watched yet another deserving family get a beautiful home built for them, led by Ty.

Melissa was in and out doing stuff and in the corner of my eye, I saw Paul and TJ head downstairs to play Ping Pong. A few minutes later, I saw a troubled Amy head down with the phone. A few minutes passed and Melissa came in with the info that there was a stranger sitting in a car in front of the church. Paul was out talking with her and TJ went darting into the darkness with a Bowie knife. "Hmmm, that's weird," said I or Andrea or both. I can't remember. We just kept watching TV, still fairly oblivious to the drama.

Meanwhile, I guess Melissa and Amy were on the phone back and forth with Laurie who saw someone running outside in the dark (who we later found out was TJ with his knife) and that this woman was still there. Finally, she (Laurie) drove down to our house. At that point, Melissa finally got it through our heads that this was scary, so we clambered off of the couch as Laurie was coming in and wondering if we should call the police. It seemed to her that this woman was acting really weird as she was talking to Paul. I ran down to get Nate, but I must have jumbled things up in telling him what was going on, because all he heard me say was that there was a strange man wandering around the property. I ran back upstairs without waiting for him and Laurie was on the phone with the police explaining the situation to them.

Nate came up a few minutes later, charging through the door ready for action! When I re-explained what was going on he settled back down and went outside to investigate himself and Laurie went back home.

We were so nervous waiting for word from any of the men, imagining the worst. Finally, they all came back and Paul told us what was really happening. This poor woman had just lost her sister and was very sad and distraught. She was simply grieving and trying to find the church where her sister was married. Paul had a good talk with her though. He gave her a brief gospel message, but as he was talking, Grandpa yelled out to him, "DON'T WORRY, PAUL, LAURIE CALLED THE POLICE!!!!" Needless to say the poor woman didn't linger. Paul invited her to come back anytime, so I hope she does. She could really use our love and our prayers.