Hungry? A couple of years ago a local institution here decided it was time for a second location. River Smith’s Chicken and Catfish had been serving up good food since 1976, and built a second restaurant on the south side of Lubbock.
Even though I grew up on the Gulf Coast, seafood isn’t usually on the top of my culinary agenda. In fact, I can count on one finger the number of times I craved seafood. So you can imagine my wife’s surprise when I said, on a Friday no less, “Let’s get seafood.” Then I remembered that River Smith’s had opened their new location, so I suggested we check it out.
I’m sure that wherever you live it’s probably the same way, but when a new restaurant opens in Lubbock, you may as well get ready for a wait. But it was after 8:00, and I figured maybe the movie crowd would have left by then.
Wrong. The place was packed. But we were pretty leisurely, and decided to go ahead and brave it. At River Smith’s, you order at the counter, and they give you a numbered buzzer that you place on a rack at your table so the server knows where to bring the order. I should have known there might be a problem when the lady that took the order had run out of buzzers and grabbed one from a different register. Nevertheless, we took our drinks and buzzer and somehow found a seat to wait.
And wait.
And wait some more.
Again, we weren’t in a hurry or even frustrated. But I did catch a server passing by and asked her if she could check on our order.
Randy is the president of a major water pump business located in Fort Worth, Texas. A few months ago he was on a Southwest Airlines flight and struck up a conversation with the lady sitting next to him. She was on her way home from a DFW visit to her daughter. A wedding shower trip, she said. As the conversation progressed, the lady somehow got to talking about her daughters and their love for the Atlanta Braves. For their sixteenth birthday, the one thing the twins wanted was to fly to Atlanta for a game. Then when the Braves were coming to Arlington a couple of years ago, it happened to be just before one of the girls’ wedding, so that didn’t work out.
And wouldn’t you know it? Here they were, an hour flight away, and again, they were here during the week of a the second twin’s wedding and the only dates they could go were taken up with wedding stuff.
Well, let’s just see, says Randy, as he pulls out a Baseball magazine and flips to the Rangers’ schedule. Actually, there was a way, and there was a day. Oh, and I have six season tickets to the Rangers Ballpark at Arlington, says he. He offered them as a wedding present.
Bill was a church planter. I know a little about that; I planted a church five years ago. Bill planted six hundred, and just before he died, he hosted a then-record 3,700 participants in a Pioneer Evangelism conference. His vision: to plant 3,000 churches. He took what people were adding in the Philippines, and began multiplying their efforts ten-fold.
I never heard Bill’s deep bass voice, singing or otherwise.
I will one day.
Bill gave up a career in music or teaching because, as one person put it, he wasn’t content leading a quiet, happy life teaching music. Instead, he and Lyn, his wife, chose the frontlines of the battle. They were appointed as missionaries in 1978.
I never hung out, played golf, argued, or even shook hands with Bill. I sure hope I can one day.
Jim Cox, his former co-worker, said that Bill was a big guy:
Big in stature, big smile, big laugh, big hands, big heart. Bill was a musician, a teacher, a planner, an organizer and a doer. He had strong opinions, enjoyed a good argument and a game of dominoes. Bill and I played golf together weekly. He was my perfect golfing companion because he was as bad a golfer as I—not that we kept score anyway.
Louise has had a rare kind of kidney cancer for the last 10-11 months. She believes in prayer, and has a lot of people praying for her. Add your own prayers to the list on her behalf. She believes that with God’s help, she can beat it.
She receives chemotherapy treatments, and recently had an idea for a way to brighten her day while she was taking them: Red shoes.
“I just thought the would make me feel better to look down at my red shoes,” she explained.
So she called Zappos to place her order. She was greeted with their “usual greeting that is so comforting.” She skipped the company’s joke of the day, and soon was greeted with a customer service rep. “Gracious” was the word she used to describe this individual who helped her with her order. “We talked a little, and I explained why I wanted these shoes. She, as all of your employees, [went] out of her way to please customers. That was that.”
The next day, to her surprise, Louise received a beautiful arrangement of red tulips, in a bright red vase and a beautiful red ribbon. She couldn’t imagine who sent them. She opened the card and began to cry. The card read,
Sunday afternoon we had a big group of couples at our house. I was hanging out with the men when Robin walks in and says, “There’s somebody at the door you need to talk to.”
Translation: Somebody’s going to ask for our money, and you’re going to make that decision.
Optional Further Translation: I don’t want to make that decision, but I reserve the right not to like it! (She knows I’m a sucker for Girl Scouts, local bands, or anybody else raising money by selling something.)
This was no Girl Scout. Boy Scout either. It was a guy about my age. And he was selling oranges.
That’s right, oranges. Grapefruit, too. And I bought them. Half a case of them, in a household of two, for $39.50.
I live half a block from a major supermarket. We don’t eat oranges that much. Grapefruit? Never.
But I bought. And I’d like to tell you why. (Yes, there are reasons beyond being a sucker.)
Kinetic Church was robbed. I don’t mean by the refs in the church league basketball tournament. I mean a thief (or thieves) stole a trailer containing 75% of the Charlotte area congregation’s equipment in early March, leaving the portable church with virtually nothing.
What would you do? How would you respond? How would you define your life if you discovered that three-fourths of your tangible assets – to say nothing of the hundreds of man-hours invested in labor – were instantly gone?
Can’t relate? How about the time somebody stole your dreams or your hope? Or your reputation? Or your innocence? Or your marriage?
You won’t believe what these guys did.
They went on the offensive. They started a billboard campaign with five different messages, as well as a YouTube video aimed directly at the thief. Check out the video below.
Kinetic Church’s response illustrates some powerful lessons in transforming painful experiences into remarkable opportunities:
Fran Cotton is a PK – a preacher’s kid. She saw love demonstrated by her pastor/father in a myriad of ways.
In response to my request for love stories, Fran shared the following example of how loving your neighbor can make you zigzag your way across your yard – and into someone else’s heart.
This is Maymie’s ultimate love story. She holds her husband, Shannon, dear, but Maymie says their story doesn’t compare to the story of her children.The first time she got pregnant, Maymie and Shannon weren’t married. But they excitedly started planning and moving in the direction of marriage and starting a family. They set the date and made the doctor’s appointments. At the first appointment, the obstetrician wanted to do an ultrasound to see how far along she was and make sure everything looked good.
They excitedly watched the monitor.
There was no heartbeat.
The next day they went back, mothers in tow, for another picture, just to be sure. They got the same dreaded answer.
Two years ago, Marvin is on the job in his native Burmuda, waiting tables at a resort. And from his perspective, that’s all he was doing. His job.
Lynn Bak saw it a bit differently. She saw an outgoing, approachable young man whose impeccable service and attention to detail revealed a professionalism way beyond his 23 years.
Lynn Bak is paid to know these kinds of things. She coordinates the School of International Education in Bermuda for Endicott College, whose main campus is in metropolitan Boston. She travels to the Elbow Beach Bermuda resort every three weeks or so. And a couple of years ago, she got to know Marvin. You won’t believe what happened next.
My wife’s car had a flat tire today. There was no question what to do. We called Flores Tire. I’d like to tell you why.
When babies are born, God gives them a voice and lungs to sound the alarm when they have a need. The only word they know is “Whaaaaa,” but it works pretty well.
Hungry? A couple of years ago a local institution here decided it was time for a second location. River Smith’s Chicken and Catfish had been serving up good food since 1976, and built a second restaurant on the south side of Lubbock.
