There is a 4th baby on the way in the Brown house.  We are very excited.  We do not know what gender the baby is but we do know that it will be born in mid to late September. 

Throughout the past week, we’ve been asked many questions; many of them are very strange if you think about them:

Was it planned?  This is a very strange question to be asked.  If I respond with “Yes” does that mean that we were “trying” to have a baby (and we all know what that means)?  If I respond with “No” does that mean that the baby was a surprise (in a negative sort of way)?  All I respond with is, “We are excited.”  Are you done now?  Which really means, “Are one of you going to have ‘the surgery’?”  How can this question really be answered; especially when it is asked outside of the church nursery?  Do you want a boy or girl?  It does not matter.  We do not feel that we need a boy to achieve gender equity.  Nor do we feel that 3 girls are too many.  For an infant, does gender really matter outside of clothing colors?  We just hope that baby is healthy.

Please don’t ask any of the above questions unless you really know the couple.  In that case, you probably don’t need to ask the questions because you probably know the answers.

Bottom line: we are having a 4th child and I am so excited that it prevents me from sleeping at times.  Be happy for us because you should be!

I’m trying out iTunes for the first time.  Two observations: 1.) It took 2 hours to download; 2.) I haven’t listened to anyone’s music because their playlist has already been listened to 5x’s or their songs require a password that I do not know.

First day’s commentary about iTunes: 1.) Crap; 2.) Crap.

I’d show you who I am listening to currently but it is only the sound the keyboard tapping. 

Sorry Mike. We had to go to dinner where they accepted credit cards. We have run out of cash.

Today we were in Atlanta and visited the King Center, MLK’s childhood home and Ebenezer Baptist Church (MLK’s boyhood church and where he was Assistant Pastor later in life). During a service at Ebenezer Baptist, three women shared some of their personal stories about Dr. King. The best stories came from Miss Dora McDonald, King’s personal secretary from 1960 until his death. She answered his phone, typed and returned letters, scheduled appointments and defended his privacy from unwanted guests.

One memory she shared took place in a Southern Christian Leadership Conference staff training session. The SCLC was a coalition of civil rights organizations that King was the president of. During this session, some of members of SCLC were riding Miss McDonald because they had never seen her participate in a mass march or be sent to jail for her activities to support civil rights. Most of the other men and women had been beaten, jailed and marched more miles than they could remember but Miss McDonald had never done any of these. Dr. King had overheard the conversation and came to Miss McDonald’s defense, “Miss McDonald is not expected to march or go to jail on behalf of the movement. Her job is manage my office and watch over my family… so that I can march and go to jail.”

Miss McDonald had always remembered Dr. King’s defense of her role in SCLC and still considered it her responsibility to look after King’s family in his absense.

Today we finally were able to meet someone. Mr. and Mrs. Robert Graetz were in the Rosa Parks Museum in Montgomery, AL. The Graetz’s were white pastors of a predominately black church in Montgomery, AL during the Bus Boycott. These individuals were very courageous because many whites hated other white people who supported blacks more than they hated black people. White racists felt that white supporters had betrayed their own race by helping blacks in the fight for desegregation. Norrie and I were able to talk to them for a few minutes as they waited for a group of Samford College students to arrive at the museum. Hopefully we’ll be able to bring them to campus to share some of their stories in Chapel. He has one book out currently called “A White Preacher’s Memoir” and another book soon to be published called “A White Preacher’s Message: Race and Reconciliation.” I have his first book and look forward to the publishing of the second one.

Tonight we sleep in Atlanta, GA where the King Center is located. We ate dinner at the Marietta Diner and I do not suggest going to; it smelled like a diner.

About the post from the night before… I made contact with the Southern Poverty Law Center to find more information about the death of Jessie Brown. It was powerful to see someone with the same name on a wall of martyrs for civil rights. Imagine seeing your name on a gravestone but even more throught-provoking.

The day was spent in Montgomery, AL where the Montgomery Bus Boycott took place. For 381 straight days, blacks walked to work, to church, to the store; refused to take the public transportation system. Blacks were not permitted to sit in the front 10 seats of the bus. They also had to enter into the back door of the bus only after paying their fee through the front door.

We visited the Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church and parsonage. This church was Dr. King’s first church from 1954-1960. The former parsonage of the church had been restored to what it looked like when the King family lived in it. Some of the furniture is original to the house while other pieces have been donated by Montgomery community members. One piece of furniture in particular caught my attention: it is the very same bureau that is in our dining room. It is a four-drawer cherry bureau; the very same one that kept silverware, napkins and other utensils that the King family used.

Yesterday we just missed James Bevel, today we just missed Bill Baxley. If you had no idea who James Bevel is, you really don’t know who Bill Baxley is. Mr. Baxley was the prosecutor during the first trial for the murder of one of the girls in the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham. Through the work of Mr. Baxley, one man was sent to prison for the death of one of the children. Mr. Baxley was at the Alabama State Capitol this afternoon but we had just missed him.

Lastly, we visited the Southern Poverty Law Center. This center seeks to provide justice for people that have been disenranchised. The SPLC also has been instrumental in remember individuals who have lost their lives during the fight for civil rights. People from Emmett Till to Martin Luther King are remembered through their memorial and educational programs. On one wall inside the facility, there is a list of about 75 names that lost their lives but have not been remembered to the extent of others. There was one name that jumped off of the wall: Jessie Brown. I’m going to do some research to find out how this person’s life was taken and I may make contact with their family.

Thanks for reading.

Today is the third day of January term trip to historic Civil Rights sites in Tennessee, Alabama and Georgia. It is part of a two and half week course on the life of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the history of the Civil Rights movement.

This afternoon we visited the Voting Rights Museum in Selma, AL. It was here in 1964-1965 where voting rights came to the forefront of America’s conscience. Voting for most blacks in the south was very difficult. Most blacks were not registered to vote and were prevented by doing so by shortened office hours at the registrar’s office, excessive poll taxes and difficult exams that covered the most minuscule details of the U.S. Constitution. But many times, many blacks were kept from registering to vote by the threat or reality of violence. Imagine the worst image regarding the KKK or lynchings; most of these took place in the southern states as a way to “keep blacks in their place.”

One of the highlights for me was meeting the wife of James Bevel by accident. Mr. Bevel was a strategist for many marches and other demonstrations that took place in the Civil Rights movement. If you ever see pictures of marches in Birmingham, AL, you will see pictures of boys and girls being sprayed by fire hoses or bitten by K-9 units. The idea to use children in marches came from James Bevel. While this is a terribly frightening idea, it helped bring an end to segregation in the most segregated city in the south. Mr. Bevel convinced Dr. King, Revered Fred Shuttlesworth and other leaders that if young children were permitted to become Christians and church members (as many Baptist churches believe), they were able to make the choice to march in demonstrations or not.

Tomorrow we visit Montgomery, AL where Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott took place from Dec. 1, 1955 to Dec. 20, 1956.

I have missed by children over the past few days. Their humorous phone calls are looked forward to but I missed several tonight because we were in a loud restaurant.

Today is the second day of a seven-day trip to historic civil rights sites in the South. Yesterday, we visited the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, TN. At this motel on April 4, 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was shot and killed by James Earl Ray. The former motel that catered to black clientele was turned into a comprehensive Civil Rights museum in 1991. The most powerful sight at the Lorraine Motel is room #306; the last room that King stayed in. It has been returned to the condition that it was in while King was helping black sanitation workers who had gone on strike for better working conditions. As you look into the room and see the dishes, cups, disheveled sheets and pillows on the floor, it is easy to imagine Dr. King laying on the bed reading the day’s news. “Precious Lord, Take My Hand,” by Mahalia Jackson plays quietly overhead. King was shot while standing on the balcony outside his room.

If interested, the last years and days of King’s life are thoroughly documented in Taylor Branch’s recent book, “At Canaan’s Edge.” The recent “Time” and “Newsweek” magazines both write about Branch’s book and quote extensive passages.

Today we toured downtown Birmingham, AL. Along with Kelley-Ingram park and the Birmingham Civil Rights Insititute, we visited the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church where four girls were killed by a church bomb on Sept. 15, 1963; only two weeks after King delivered his “I have a dream” speech on the steps on the Lincoln Monument. The crest of the Civil Rights movement took place at the “March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom” in late August but soon fell as the lives of four girls were taken as they changed into their choir robes for Sunday morning worship. While in Birmingham, Dr. King wrote his famous “Letter From a Birmingham Jail.” This concise letter outlines the basic tenets of Dr. King’s philosophy of non-violence. You also can hear his frustration boil as he described why it is not possible for blacks to wait any longer for integration to occur. Birmingham in 2006 does not look like Birmingham of 1963. Many changes have taken place for greater equality for blacks and whites of Birmingham. According to our guides this morning, Birmingham still has far to go.

Thanks for reading.

A sad day.  A good friend, Andy, from a nearby college is going to be moving to the north of St. Paul, Minn.  The move will get their family closer to his wife’s parents.

It is not easy to make friends.  In college, it was so much easier to meet and get connected with people.  Now it is different.  Since living in Indiana, Hope and I have struggled to make new friends.  Going on seven years, I have made very few good friends (two to be exact) that weren’t students or people that I work with.  Now one of them is moving away.  I have certainly appreciated his conversations and friendship.

Is it me or is an open dishwasher a magnet for toddlers?  As soon as the dishwasher opens, Eden (who is 1 year old) makes a bee line to the dishwasher.  She begins with the knives and moves onto the plates.  It is especially difficult to defend against her tiny hands when we are loading the dishwasher because our hands are covered in debris.  We are left to using one leg but often have to call for back-up if she is especially sneaky.

The Eleventh Plague is soon to be leaving our house.  This is the third Christmas break in a row that each one of us has become sick with a stomach flu of some sort. 

Unfortunately, Gracie is not a very good patient.  By that I mean that she gives very little warning before puking.  Hopefully she will outgrow this lack of self-observation.