War Eagle/Roll Tide/Go Dawgs/????

Last Tuesday was the gathering before the first college football games of the season. We decided to have a little bit of a tailgate theme for the young adults. You know that we had plenty of Auburn decorations - War Eagle! You can even see our tiger tail peaking out. I had to borrow some Alabama shakers. Thanks to Lynn & Kyle Bass for allowing us to use their shakers (they have also provided desserts faithfully - along with 5 other families). One of our guys is an avid Alabama fan. His name is Will and he always sits at the kitchen table on Tuesday nights and I knew that table needed to be an Alabama table.

We told everyone to wear their team colors. Not everyone did but we did!! Here is Laura in her cute Auburn shirt and Mark with his new Auburn tie. (Laura gave it to him for his birthday a couple of weeks ago.) We have lots of different schools represented. We have graduates from University of Tennessee and some folks who graduated from Birmingham Southern. We have Mississippi State fans. We have folks from Florida. As a momma, I think it is so neat that these young adults making their way in the world (some of them far from home) want to come together and study and learn more about their own faith.

Laura also bought this cute new apron (for herself) and graciously allowed me to wear it - not just once but again later in the week (thanks Laura!!). We served meatballs (cooked in the crock pot all day in BBQ sauce and grape jelly). We also had hash brown casserole and oriental slaw and Hawaiian bread. Lynn W. and her sweet daughter, Emma made the desserts. She made Lazy Layer bars. I think my recipe has a different name but they are the wonderful cookie bars with nuts and butterscotch chips. They also made rasberry almond bars.

After dinner, our lesson was on Buddhism. It has been so interesting to study about these other religions. I must admit that I was totally ignorant. It is almost like I had "Christians" all together on one side and then "others" on the other side. Our neighbor, Meredith, just returned from teaching in Thailand for a year and she came to the study on Tuesday night for the first time. It was so neat to hear her perspective - the perspective of someone who had been living in a country with many Buddhists. These young adults are surrounded by people of other faiths at their jobs and in places like dental school, etc. They need to know what we believe as Christians. They need to know why we believe what we believe. They need to know what other believe. We are not meeting tonight but will begin again next Tuesday night.

Mark and I feel so blessed to host this group in our home. God's mercies are indeed new every morning (Lamentations 3:22-23). Who knew that we would be doing this at this stage of our lives and LOVING it??