Two thousand seven
Brought our family
a little piece of heaven!

And her name is Sophia Yenenesh Ray.

Brooke’s blog: www.brookeray.blogspot.com

Sophie’s name is so special that I must tell you about it, though Brooke has a post about this, too. Her first name, Sophia, is one that Brooke and Josh mutually liked and thought that there would be no way it could morph into something mean in a few years by a pre-teen mean kid. It seemed natural to shorten it to Sophie…and it fits her perfectly! Her middle name was given to her by her birth family as well and therefore provides a connection to them and to her birthplace: Yenenesh. We Americans simply cannot pronounce it as Ethiopians do…but the second syllable has a little heavier accent than the other two. It is, we have learned, a rather common name used there in Ethiopia and means…get this… “You are mine.” When Brooke told me about this, I immediately thought of Isaiah 43:1, one of my favorite scriptures, where God Himself says, “Do not fear…I have called you by name; you are Mine!” This scripture has brought me great comfort on many occasions, knowing that God not only knows my name but He has claimed me as His and adopted me as a part of His family. So…for Sophie to have this name carries a great impact of meaning and significance on many levels: she is loved by God, her birth family, and her forever family. This is a blessing that some adopted children do not have or do not have confidence about (from their birth situation).

We have talked about the “miracle of adoption” through this whole experience. Hasn’t everyone thought at some point in their lives that there just is no way that an adopted child could be loved like a birthed child? Let me assure you…it is exactly the same! Brooke said one day that she feels as though she birthed Sophie…this is the miracle of it all. Sophie is as much “ours” as she could possibly be, though the genes might be just a little different. There have already been many times that I have thought “she is just like her mother”…and I know that Kathie has said the same about her being or acting like Josh, too. Amazing…such an amazing blessing.

Emily and Jarrod aren’t even thinking about babies yet…but they are blessing us anyway with their good lives, very focused on each other, their work, and, most importantly, on God. Emily now has almost a year of selling pharmaceuticals for Sanofi-Aventis…and Jarrod continues to work hard on the Smith Farm. They now have five cats and two dogs…and always on the lookout of any animals who need rescuing. They are adorable…and we are so proud of them.

In addition to being wonderful new parents, Brooke and Josh continue their work. After maternity leave, Brooke went back to her position as youth minister at our church where she does a phenomenal job of guiding teenagers to grow in their faith. Josh is still working for Enterprise Realty in property management while in school at Harding Graduate School of Religion, working on his Masters of Divinity. They amaze us at all they accomplish in their busy lives while keeping themselves completely focused on God and what He has planned for them and their baby girl.

Barbara O’Neil, our “adopted” daughter, is doing well in her work as a teacher at New Hope Christian Academy…and we are as proud of her as if we had had her always. Shannon McCarty, her friend and former roommate, is in remission from her brain cancer…and we are thrilled with that great blessing. Shannon lives in Texas now and enjoys being with her family there.

Norman enjoys his work, heading up The Labry Companies, and still finds it exciting to go to work everyday. He is, as always, so generous to me, our family, our friends, and anyone in need. He is wonderful!

So, you’re thinking…what else has happened in the Bennetts' lives this year? If you really want to know, read on…

• We remodeled our house some more! We had the two upstairs bathrooms redone last January and February…very, very cute. Then in November, we had the GARAGE remodeled! In October, we visited our friends, Phil and Linda Shunk, at their brand new home in Franklin, TN…and their garage with its special concrete coating and its extreme orderliness inspired me to find a garage remodeling specialist and see what we could do about the extreme disorderliness in our garage. Sure ‘nuf…found a wonderful contractor and he totally transformed the place! It was finished the week after Thanksgiving; so, with the craziness of the holidays and end-of-year projects, I haven’t completely finished putting everything in its organized space. But when I do, I’ll post some before, during, and after pictures for your enjoyment…and maybe your inspiration, too!
• In early March, we joined our wonderful friends, Dwayne and Vivian Black, in Las Vegas where we drove to Hoover Dam (VERY interesting), shopped everywhere for Vivi’s mother-of-the-bride dress while the guys golfed, and…yes, saw most of the casinos. Besides finding Vivi’s dress, the best part of the trip was seeing Celine Dion in concert! It was a fun trip, just being with our friends…but I won’t cry if I never go back there. I kept getting mad every time I saw a young couple traipsing their children through those casinos and I wondered the impression being made on their little minds. The casinos are over-the-top beautiful, though…I did enjoy looking at every detail of each one.
• I met my goal to run a 5K in 2007! I ran the Germantown Mayor’s Race…and finished! Let’s just say that I am proud that I did it…don’t ask me anything else about it. However, I do love my daily workouts with Sonia Smith…and my workout partners who have become friends over the last three years of seeing each other almost daily at 6:00 in the morning!
• Later in March, Norman and I took Brooke with us to New York City where we met up with Emily! She was there in training for her job with Sanofi-Aventis, so we met her at the train station and had lots of fun for the weekend. We stayed at the Embassy Suites in The Battery…and could see Ground Zero from our hotel. We visited the church that overlooks Ground Zero…and were very moved by the images and momentoes of 9-11 that they have displayed in a sort of mini-museum there in their very old building. This is the church that George Washington attended when he was President of the United States…so it is quite historical and so interesting. We decided to go back there for church on Sunday morning and we were very blessed by their worship. We even met some people who were visiting there as well…the man grew up at Highland Street Church of Christ! Amazing! Shopping was great fun with our two girls…Norman got to see his favorite musical of all time, “Les Miserables”…and food in New York was fabulous as always!
• In April, we along with about fifty people from Highland Street Church attended Stream Franklin, a wonderful worship conference at the Fourth Avenue Church of Christ in the charming town of Franklin, TN. The worship with Ken Young and Hallal’s leading stirred our hearts and souls…and we all left there refreshed, revitalized, and renewed with the pure worship to God we experienced there.
• Kelci Young, the Young’s daughter, had just gotten engaged to Anthony Bills, the son of one of the elders at this church….and, in the excitement of the moment, I told her that I would love to help her plan her wedding! She accepted…and thus began a very exciting time of creating a fabulous wedding that was very intense with all the details right up till wedding time in October! The wedding was so fabulous that it will be featured in VIP Franklin (January issue) and in “I Do for Tennessee Brides” next issue! In the process of making this happen, I fell in love with the Young family (even more so)…and Marca Young and I had fun with the uniqueness of our shared first name (though spelled differently) many times through those months of planning and working together to create the wedding of Kelci and Anthony’s dreams. Wendy Humphries, a dear friend of theirs there at 4th Avenue and one of the Hallal singers, became the on-site wedding coordinator…we discovered many connections we have and became very close friends. In fact, we started finishing each other’s sentences by the time we finished with the wedding! It was great fun…and of course, it was fun to do that for Kelci and Anthony and for Ken and Marca. Through this wedding, I feel like I have a whole new church family in Franklin!
• We visited New Orleans one April weekend, too…Phil and Linda Shunk invited us to come visit their new home there, having recently moved from Dallas where we became good friends while at Prestoncrest Church. They showed us many of the neighborhoods and areas that were so damaged by Hurricane Katrina…and then the beautiful areas of New Orleans, too. Just a couple of weeks later, they learned that they would be moving to the Nashville area. We were so excited to tell them about Franklin and about the church there…and voila, a few short weeks later, they moved to a beautiful home in Franklin and quickly became very involved in the church! We’ve already visited them there, too…and are excited that they are much closer to us now.
• The early summer was spent getting ready for Sophie to come home! Brooke let me help her sew for Sophie’s room…and we had a wonderful time with all of the decorating.
• We celebrated Brooke and Josh’s first Mother’s and Father’s Day before they were actually holding Sophie in their arms. It was a special celebration…very touching to think of them as parents already. Sending them off to Africa on June 6 was a big, important day for all of us!
• While they were in Ethiopia for two weeks, Norman and I went to Dallas to celebrate Rebekah Black’s wedding! I and several close friends gave Rebekah’s bridal luncheon the day before the wedding…and it was very much fun and quite unique. Emily was honored to be one of Rebekah’s bridesmaids…so it was even more fun to be back in Dallas with her. Norman and I left the morning of the wedding in order to be back in the Memphis airport in time to see Sophie arrive with her parents. Because of bad weather and flight cancellations, we didn’t quite make it…but it was still wonderful when we did arrive at Brooke and Josh’s home later that night to see this child for the first time!

  And meanwhile, back in Dallas, Rebekah and James’ wedding was beautiful in every way!

• At the end of June, Macy and Mackenzie, our great-nieces from Bryan, TX, joined us for their fourth summer of fun in Memphis! We adore these girls and are so happy that they still want to come stay with us. They have now turned 11 and 13 and are definitely in the pre-teen phase of life! We planned a fun vacation at the lake at Heber Springs for the family while they were here…and did a lot of other wonderful things. Best of all, they worked while they were here, doing special jobs and projects for me and others, to raise money in order to donate to World Vision. They chose to give $75, enough money to buy a goat for a family in Ghana that would supply milk and baby goats to sell. Having Sophie here was a great “visual aid” for the girls to know that real people live in Africa and are in great need. We can’t adopt them all but we can help them have better lives by helping through reliable Christian organizations like World Vision. It was a sweet moment when they put the last dollar in the “goat jar.” Take a look for yourself at what you can do: www.worldvision.org

  The summer was so much fun…and the girls fell totally in love with Sophie. They can’t wait to come back this summer to see her and help babysit her!

• In the midst of all this activity, I was very busy planning and preparing for HeartLight 2007, AGAPE’s major annual fundraise! It was on August 17 at the Convention Center and Cannon Center downtown Memphis, featuring Mandisa! Mandisa was an American Idol/Season Five finalist…and has since gone on to establish herself very well in the contemporary Christian music field! She was a great asset to our event and gave an amazing performance for the 1000 people in attendance. Mandisa fell in love with Sophie, too..so that made big points with me, of course! We made $300,000 at this event…and were so thankful for the coverage we had in several media outlets here in the area. We began working on HeartLight 2008 as soon as ’07 was over…and are very excited about the emerging plans we have in the works.

  AGAPE Child and Family Services continues to be the focus of my volunteer work here in Memphis. The agency, with its strong leadership and excellent staff, is a dynamic organization, continually striving to meet the changing needs of our community and society. I am very happy to have served 5 years on its Board and will serve this next year as the Chairman.

• They say everyone has 15 minutes of fame…and I guess that I got mine in August of this year! In addition to a successful HeartLight, I won the Memphis Garden of the Year contest, hosted and judged by The Commercial Appeal! I was absolutely thrilled with this honor and so excited to have the sign in my yard and a very nice full-page article with pictures in the newspaper! At the end of August, I was very honored to be named one of The Fifty Women Who Make A Difference in Memphis (through my work at AGAPE), designated by the Memphis Woman magazine and celebrated at a very special dinner where all of my family attended, including my beaming mother. J It was humbling at the same time it was honoring…
• When the article appeared in the Commercial Appeal about my garden award, a woman was visiting Memphis from San Antonio and loved the pictures of my yard, one of which happened to feature a Texas birdhouse. She called the newspaper and found out how to get in touch with me…called and asked if I would come to San Antonio to speak at their annual Fall Home and Garden Tour! I quickly explained that I was not a Master Gardener and didn’t know all the names of my plants…I described myself as a yard decorator more than a gardener. She answered, “That is perfect!” So, I accepted the invitation to speak…made flight reservations for both Mother and me…and off we went to San Antonio in October for a truly wonderful visit with a bunch of brand new friends there! Mother said that I did a FABULOUS job with my speech…and I’m taking her word for it! I would love to do more speaking about gardening…it was so much fun.
• September brought us a fun Labor Day visit with Dwayne and Vivian, this time in Memphis. And then, later in the month, I went to Ohio for a birthday visit with Teresa and Layton McCown. Going to that beautiful part of the country is always such a treat…and of course, being with longtime friends like Teresa and Layton is always a blessing. We started October with a trip to Houston to meet Dwayne and Vivi there, stay with their son Jordan and his wife Ashlie, and see Jordan play in a Houston Texans game. That was also so much fun and we loved every minute of our time with them there. Vivian couldn’t be there till Saturday night…but Dwayne, Norman, and I went to Round Rock, Texas, on Friday to the annual antique extravaganza there. Norman tolerated it very well while Dwayne and I scouted out some great antiques and lots of “junque.” I even met Mary Emmerling and got her autograph on her new book! She was very taken with my jewelry…so much that I forgot to ask her how to publish the book I’ve been working on for a year!
• And we’ve just about finished taking the photos for this year’s worth of country decorating, both inside and outside of our house. I don’t know the next step yet…but stay tuned for that!
• In between all these trips and projects, I’ve managed to squeeze in some wonderful time with my mother in Winnsboro. She is still strong and healthy and enjoying her life. Of course, she misses Daddy more than she can even say…but she has definitely used this new place in her life in a fresh new ministry to others. She has helped many people go through the loss of a spouse…and is always tending to others in some way. My sister Sue brought her to Memphis for the Memphis Woman banquet…that was such a sweet time for us to be together. We are so blessed that she is so healthy and vital…and we thank God for her every day. We were together in Bryan, TX, just before Thanksgiving where my brother Gary was the auctioneer of a charity auction for the Christian school there. (He was great!) Then we were all together at the farm with Mother for Thanksgiving. Some of the family will be with her for Christmas, too. She is still hosting the family celebrations!
• I must mention two groups that have become such an important part of our lives: my Wednesday morning Bible study group and our Sunday night Bible Study group. On Wednesdays, about 7-10 women meet to do in-depth Bible study…and about 6 couples meet every Sunday night at our house to have discussion and prayer. These two times of Bible study and prayer are vital to us and what gets us through this busy time of our lives. We are so thankful for the close relationships that have come through these studies. Sarajane Dillard, Marilyn Jones, and I trekked over to Nashville in September to the Deeper Still Conference, featuring Beth Moore, Kay Arthur, and Priscilla Shirer; we can highly recommend this conference to any of you women reading this who are looking for a place to be spiritually taught and encouraged!

As I write this long treatise on our lives this year, I am watching this precious grandbaby girl while Brooke finishes up her workweek. I have the great privilege of taking care of Sophie on Fridays (when I’m not traveling!)…and she and I have a wonderful time together. It’s so fun to watch her grow and learn…she amazes me!

And I am also amazed and thankful for the wonderful friendships we have made through our years at Harding College, Dallas, and now in Memphis…and all the other places we’ve been. We love you all and thank God for you often.

Our door is always open…we have three unused bedrooms and two freshly-redone bathrooms all ready for a visit! Please come anytime…and know that we love you all.

Written to you by Marka…obviously…but okayed by the rest of the family!

PS Prissy and King are as chubby and sweet as ever…I love my puppy dogs, even though they (or I??) didn’t do so well with the Barkbusters. Oops.