Halfway There!

We’ve been traveling to Champaign, Illinois, for Thanksgiving for the last 23 years. In fact, I’ve never eaten Thanksgiving Dinner anywhere else since Teff and I got married. For my whole family, Champaign is Thanksgiving!

Of course, the problem is that it’s a long way away! First, we lived in Fuquay-Varina. Then we moved an hour east to Bailey, and now we are another hour east of Bailey. So, these days, it takes 17 hours for us to drive from Greenville to Champaign.

And each year, we dread that long drive. We get all geared up with snacks, books on tape and reading material, and we set out hoping to stop as few times as possible. In our earlier (dumber) days, we tried to drive straight through, but for the last 15, we’ve stopped for the night. We’ve determined that the halfway point is Charleston, West Virginia.

Yet, seems like it takes forever to get to Charleston! Every other family seems to be traveling at the same time, and I-40 is bumper to bumper. This year, road construction on I-40 caused long delays. We finally arrived at our hotel after midnight and completely exhausted!

The next morning, we all got up with a renewed energy, however. We were only halfway there, but the next day seemed like NOTHING! The toughest leg of the journey was over, and it felt like we were almost there! We arrived excited and ready for a great week with Teff’s parents.

Likewise, believe it or not, we have completed five months of Crossing Together (our one-year initiative to complete Phase I of our building process) and we are HALFWAY there!

When we started Crossing Together, $1.44 million seemed insurmountable to raise in one year. Incredibly, gift by gift, given family by family over five months, has gotten us halfway there.

Hopefully from here, we will gain new energy and be encouraged to finish strong by next June!

So, I say,…let’s celebrate! To commemorate where we are as a congregation, we are going to have another Crossing Together celebration during worship to give praise to our God who continues to lead us! Mark the weekend of December 18/19 as we will cheer the halfway mark!

Branson