Trip to Bethlehem, PA

I'm sitting in the airport in Charlotte, NC enjoying a tasty BBQ pork sandwich and a few minutes' relief from the middle seat woes... Traveling with the boss - guess who gets the middle seat? :(

This trip was necessary for work - it was kind of a hail mary attempt to raise some capital for our company. We are so close - we have distribution ready to go - we have product warehoused in PA and SD, everyone loves the water, BUT we just don't have the necessary capital to support the sales and marketing effort. So we met with a small group of our investors. Basically, if we don't get more money from them or from their friends in the next two weeks, our company is pretty much done. I felt pretty good about the meetings yesterday, but the follow up and candid conversations I've had afterward leave me with my nagging doubts.

I could go on and complain about the state of things, how I don't want to lose my job (again), or that if we shut down, a lot of really good people will have lost a significant chunk of money that they will never get back, or how the travel to and from was just about the most terrible I've ever experienced, but that just makes me dwell on it more and I just end up soliciting a bunch of "poor Jon" comments on the blog.

So I'd like to highlight two good things about the trip.

Breakfast this morning was awesome! The blueberry muffin was adequate - that really had nothing to do with the awesomeness...

There is a man on our board of directors who is by far our most active shareholder. He has been a friend to my boss for many years. He is the guy my boss turns to when he's struggling. This man is a sports medicine doctor and former olympic medalist. He is also a believer. He has been such an encouragement to me. Knowing there is someone else out there who I can tell the unvarnished truth to (dropping the annoying company line) is so refreshing. He is a father of 5 young children, and his wife homeschools them. Everything about this guy is rock-solid.

This morning, he and I went away from our hotel and walked down the streets of Bethlehem, PA and talked and prayed together. One of his kids is into astronomy big-time. He was talking about a star called Canis Majoris, which is apparently is 1800 times larger than our own sun. His boy brings that up a lot when he is facing a tough time - "just think - a star that massive - and God just SPOKE it into existence!" We talked a lot about the beauty and power behind that. Words really don't do it justice. We have a relationship with the God who created Canis Majoris. Yet He is intimately involved in our lives and knows the number of hairs on our head.

We prayed for each other and left the cafe where we ended up knowing that no matter what happens with the company, God is in control. We don't have to be...

The other thing deals with the girls. I have been in pretty close contact with Jenetta when I could during this trip. She even took care of mapquesting directions for us from the Newark Aiport where we ended up at midnight on Wednesday. In our conversations together, it is obvious that me being gone for three days has a big effect on the girls. Jenetta is really frustrated. Behaviors we haven't seen in months are resurfacing. Jenetta is convinced that the stress and uncertainty is coming back for them. No matter how much I tell them I am coming back on the phone, they've heard all that before, and won't belive it until they see me when they wake up tomorrow morning.

Hearing her talk about this just breaks my heart for our daughters. We try so hard to provide stability for them, and they have shown so much improvement over the last 5 months. It is such a fragile thing...

But in a way it makes me feel kind of good, too. It's good to feel needed. It's good to feel responsible for something other than your own hapiness. This was the reason we were interested in the concept of adoption anyway.

So I am exhausted, and hoping to get out of Charlotte in about 45 minutes. Pray that I make it home and have energy and strength and patience to be full-time dad tomorrow.