Drizzle turned to ice, ice turned to snow…glorious snow. It was here and gone in less than 24 hours, but fun was had nonetheless.
I’d like to introduce you to my friends Neil and Lindsey. We met them a year ago and formed an immediate connection (at least on our part – gee, won’t it be awkward if they read this and think “What connection?).
I digress…
Neil and Lindsey are those really cool people you want to be friends because, well, they are really cool.
And they do really cool things.
They both come from photography backgrounds, but recently developed a love for film. They have started a film company called Iron Kite Films. Do yourself a favor and check it out http://www.ironkitefilms.com/.
There are several cool parts to this:
Cool part one – the films tell a story that you don’t see in your typical wedding or birthday or any other event video. It’s quite fancy. Emphasis on fancy.
Cool part two – Neil makes videos of the mission trips he goes on and puts them on the website.
Cool part three – They are vocal about their beliefs and what they are doing.
Cool part four – 10% of the orders they book this quarter will go to a missionary family in the Phillipines
This is one family who are passionately in love with God and making His great name known throughout the world. They don’t just give lip service to their love of Christ, they live it out in big ways. I love that an ordinary couple, who happen to be really cool, started a company related to something they were interested in and are using it to make something great of God’s name.
They inspire me…to do more, to get out of my comfort zone, to never lose hope.
August 26…it had finally arrived. The day of days. The dawning of a new era. The beginning of it all…My last day as a Montague and my first day as a Davidson. My heart was conflicted because, after all, I had been a Montague for 25 years. How would people know me? Would I have to hyphen my name on facebook? How long would it take me to remember to introduce myself as MacKenzie Davidson and not MacKenzie Montague?
But then I told myself to shut-up with that nonsense. I was getting married to my prince that day. I did not have time to worry about such silly things as name changes. After all, I had to get my hair and make-up done.
The day started with a luncheon for me and my bridesmaids at my grandmother’s house. I think everyone was amazed I was actually eating. Not too many things will keep me from eating.
After putting away a plate of food, we headed for the church. I know it is cliche, but I felt like a princess sitting in that blue chair getting my hair curled and my lips painted red, and when I put my dress on I felt like the most beautiful woman in the world….for a whole five minutes because that was the point at which I realized I could not breath due to the tightness of the dress. Sometimes I guess pain is beauty.
The morning and afternoon passed in a frenzy of pictures and playing games as we all nervously awaited 6:00.
Finally, it was time for me to start moving to the front of the church…or is it back…maybe it depends on your perspective. Either way, I moved. As my father and I headed down the walkway to the foyer, I began to realize that I was actually getting married. No more talking about it, no more planning. And for some reason I found it funny and began to laugh.
I laughed while the mothers walked in. I laughed while my friends strutted there stuff to towards the front. I laughed while my father walked me down. And yes, I laughed in my pastor’s face.
Our ceremony was exactly what we wanted it to be, except for the laughing and the bridesmaids flowers that may be the ugliest things I have ever seen. We wanted God to be glorified and praised. We wanted a God-centered wedding. I think we accomplished that. After twenty minutes of worship and making a covenant between ourselves and God and those present, Paul and I skipped, hopped and jumped down the aisle as David Crowder crooned “I Saw the Light”.
After a few mintues of pictures Mike Murks, a family friend, drove Paul and I to my parents’ house where we all danced the night away….not really. At around 9, I was ready to go.
But we had a fun night filled with food, dancing and turkey calling from my dad and good friend Chuck.
Since we were headed to Jackson, we closed out the night with dancing to “I’m Goin’ to Jackson” by Johnny Cash and June Carter. A month later we actually listened to the words and thought maybe that wasn’t the best song choice. We ran through the luminous glow of sparklers (rice makes the birds blow up after all), ending what was the first night of the rest of our lives.
I want to tell you a story. A story of one woman’s need and another woman’s selfless act to meet that need.
Phyllis grew up in rural Mississippi. Her father was a coach, teacher, and eventually sheriff. Her mother worked for the Board of Education. She has a sister and a brother. She married a man who would become a urologist. She worked with deaf children. They settled down in the Mississippi Delta and raised three boys.
Phyllis’ father was diagnosed with polycystic kidney disease, a disease passed from parent to child in which cyst form on your cyst eventually causing them to cease to function. There is no cure. The only treatment is dialysis or transplant. He knowingly suffered with the disease for about 12 years. He was on dialysis the entire time.
Phyllis and her sister both have the disease. Her sister had a transplant many years ago. Phyllis has not needed one…until now.
Recently, however, her kidneys have weakened. The doctors have told her she will have to begin dialysis soon and she will need a new kidney. Her sister, of course, cannot be a donor. Neither can her sister’s children, since they could develop the disease. Her brother is not a candidate. Her three adult sons cannot be donors because they are not old enough and they could develop the disease later in life. Hope is dying that she will find a kidney without having to go on the donor list.
Her brother’s children are her best option.
However, before they can be tested, another steps in.
Teresa grew up in the same small town as Phyllis, though they went to separate schools and did not really know one another growing up. Teresa met and married at a young man from her home town. She became a teacher. Her husband a social worker and then rural letter carrier. They eventually settled in their hometown and raised four children.
Teresa, knowing Phyllis’ situation, calls the hospital to begin the donor process. She makes it through the initial interview. There is a spark of hope. Then she finds out she is a blood and tissue match. Hope fans from spark to flame. Teresa travels to Birmingham for a day of testing and questioning.
A few days pass. The test results come in. Teresa is the perfect match. Hope becomes an all-consuming fire.
Teresa is finally able to tell Phyllis at Christmas that she is her donor. Phyllis is dumb-founded. She had never considered Teresa. After all, who would have thought she would have been a perfect match?
Teresa will selflessly and with all the love she has give her kidney to Phyllis Friday, February 3, a day that forever will bond these two women.
Phyllis is my father’s sister. Teresa is my mother.
So, I haven’t blogged in over a month. Here’s a quick catch – up over the events that have happened.
My sister got married back the first of October. I know that was over a month ago, but I thought she looked real pretty and wanted to put a picture of her up. She married a great guy, Nathan, who might be the biggest Ole Miss fan I have ever met.
We bought a house! I know..crazy. It was one of those things that just happened. We got back from MS and the wedding and our realtor, Brent Morris (I HIGHLY encourage anyone in the W-S area looking for a home to call him), told us about a house in foreclosure that he thought was exactly what we wanted. We looked at it and decided he was right. Long story short, after a lot of praying it all worked out somehow. It is a great God story that I don’t have the time to write about at the moment.
We went to a pumpkin patch.
She tried to pick up every pumpkin she could get her hands on.
Caleb Montague Davidson was born on November 20 at 5:20 a.m. He weighed 8.050 lbs and was 22 inches long. I guess that would explain why I had little feet beating my ribs the last month of pregnancy. 
Cap and Nana (Paul’s parents) were here when he was born. We had a whole 24 hours with them before the arrival of their grandson.
He’s definitely got more Montague than Davidson.
I couldn’t resist the little turkey outfit to bring him home in. I felt the feathers on the hat completed the outfit.
Lily is making a great big sister. Let’s hope it continues 🙂
The Big Serve was a service project Revo was involved with a couple of weeks ago. It was spearheaded by Summit Church. It was a four day event in which participating churches blitzed their communities with service projects. Over 1200 people from three churches volunteered over those four days, loving their neighbors and helping out their communities. You can check out an interview with Andy Cook, the man who started it all, that was on the news here.
Some took food to a local food bank, stocked the pantry, and packed boxes.
Some did everything possible to get paint all over them. All while working hard.
Some, if you couldn’t guess from the last picture, painted.
Some worked to finish up building a Habitat for Humanity house
Some were super excited to be there
Some lifted really heavy metal looking things at the Habitat house.
Some scrubbed floors and walls at The Children’s Home.
Some ate cookies
Some watched them eat cookies…and maybe had a few themselves.
Some carried buckets of something or other gleefully
All left knowing they had contributed something that was bigger than themselves and more than they could have done individually.Lots of things have happened over the past couple of weeks. So, I am taking a break from A Nomadic Love Story to play catch up.
Emma showing off her skills.
This picture pretty much sums up how daily life went in Naples. Paul taking pictures. One of the kids (in this case Emma) trying to get our attention. Alessia occupied with Baby Lily. Benjamin (aka Bubba) climbing all over Shannon. Charlie trying to avoid being photographed.
I’m still hopeful they will be sweethearts one day.
Because, after all, he’s the cutest Bubba I know.
Micah and a fussy Lily
Alessia loves Baby Lily. In fact, the only nickname Lily has ever – or will ever have if I can help it- is Baby Lily, given to her by Alessia.
Good friends are hard to come by – especially ones that you can call or who calls several times a day just to tell you something a child has done or ask what your cooking for supper.
Despite the difficult and overwhelming circumstances my family was going through, a wedding was still quickly approaching. We traveled back and forth between Jackson and McAdams. We worked at the hospital, writing thank you notes, going over the program and schedule, and nailing down little details that sneak up on you. We worked at home painting, staining, and building.
To be quite honest, I don’t remember much of the week of the wedding. I just know we were all really busy. Our friends from Fort Worth made it Friday afternoon and were taken to their places of lodging for the weekend. All the groomsmen would be staying at a lake house we had rented out. The rehearsal dinner would also be there. The girls would be staying at one of the less than fabulous motels in town. Along with friends rolling in, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins showed up throughout the day as well.
It was finally time to go to the rehearsal. Bro. James and Mrs. Guinevere Young picked us up in their Model A car. A true classic if there ever was one. Two signs a car is a classic: 1) There is no air conditioner. 2) The car only goes about 35 mph. No air conditioner at 35 mph in 90+ degree weather and about 100% humidity equals lots of sweat. In case you didn’t know, sweat does not smell like flowers.
Everyone made it to the reception, except Bro. Ronnie Cathey, who would be officiating part of the ceremony. We waited….we waited a little longer, and finally Bro. Barry and I decided it was time to get the show on the road. Luckily for everybody present the entire wedding party had been in at least one wedding before so the rehearsal didn’t take too terribly long. And don’t worry about Bro. Ronnie. He finally showed up. Turns out, he got caught in Durant, MS (it’s not even worthy googling so don’t waste your time) at the train tracks. I can count on one hand how many times I have seen a train pass through Durant.
We all headed out to the lake house to enjoy a little bit of Louisiana by way of a shrimp boil and some IBC root beer, cooked by my cousin, Michael, and a true Cajun, Mr. Merrill Fisher. After dinner we had toasts speeches, which if I could go back and do over, I probably wouldn’t. It was quite embarrassing to sit there while everybody looked at you. I didn’t have a clue where to look, so most of the evening I looked at the pile of shrimp carcasses on my plate.
We finished up and said our goodbyes or see you laters. Then it was time to tell Paul goodbye – for the last time as his girlfriend and fiancee.
My apologies for the lack of blogging lately. We were in Mississippi for about 10 days for my sister’s wedding. Lots has happened and there will be pictures and blogs galore soon, but for now, we continue with our story.
The drive home was a tense one and I probably made it in record time. What I found on arriving was a rather badly banged up grandfather, uncle and aunt and a grandmother in ICU at University Hospital in Jackson.
I rather dislike the ICU. There are a few reasons for this great dislike. One is that I spent a Christmas vacation in the ICU waiting room at the VA hospital in Jackson when my father’s father was there. It was a decision I made. Nobody forced me to stay there but it was very emotional and confusing as an 11 year old.
This leads me to the next thing I don’t like about the ICU…the waiting room. It is filled with people just waiting. Granted bonds are formed across those hospital chairs as families share the stories of their loved ones who are in critical condition. Books and blankets and pillows and prayers are shared amongst people who in a rather short amount of time become closely tied together over the bonds crisis and heartache.
This leads me to the last thing I don’t like about ICUs. The waiting. You have no idea what is happening behind those doors between the few precious moments you are allowed to go in, and when a doctor or nurse comes to the crowded waiting room you can hear and feel the air being sucked out of it as everyone who has been sitting, waiting and wondering sometimes for days takes a deep breath in anticipation of who the doctor or nurse is looking for and what is going to be said.
That is where I found my family and close friends – the ICU waiting room. I joined the group of wait-ers, trying to find out the latest news about Granny. Time finally approached when we could go in. About ten minutes until those windowless metal doors would open we, along with many others, began to gather by said doors, trying to wait patiently for the minutes to tick by.
I found Granny lying in a bed, connected to tubes and hoses and monitors and IVs. It seemed the list of her injuries grew every day as the doctors did more tests. It was not good news. Many of her ribs were broken. Her urethra was severed and had been sewed back together. However because it had been severed urine had gotten into her body cavity. That is not even half of what was wrong with her. I don’t even know if I ever knew every single thing that was.
If you have never seen someone you love that close to death, I will tell you it is nothing you want to see. I have witnessed it three times in my life now. Only once did the person pass away while we waited and looked on. This was not that time.
MacKenzie M Davidson 
