The Winter of 2010 in Nashville

Weather forecast for Middle Tennessee early in the week predicted -- repeatedly predicted -- snow of up to 1 inch in Nashville and more elsewhere over Wednesday nite & Thursday morning, with storm to pass on out by noon. The snow did not commence until very late Thursday morning, and then hardly came close to an inch accumulation.

But the predicted frigid temperatures really DID happen! Nashville has hardly gotten up to freezing yet this year, and night-time lows continue to be in the teens or very low twenties.

With this in mind, my church, Eastwood Christian (Disciples), which already opens on the third Friday of winter months, to ten homeless men thru the "Room in the Inn" ministry, chose to offer our facility for any of the nights from this past Thursday thru tomorrow night (Sunday). As part of this I offered my services to drive the van, stay overnite and/or assist with breakfast. I ended up being assigned to do the first two on Thursday.

To be honest, dear reader, I had not driven in snow here (or anywhere else) in many, many winters, nor had I driven this particular van in anything but fair weather. But as I say above, the snow didn't get deep and at that it was powder snow like I grew up with back in Idaho, and the main streets were certainly pretty open and drivable.

So off I went from Eastwood in East Nashville, to downtown to pick up ten men to bring back to the church. All of us involved in this emergency (or "extra-nites"?) "Room in the Inn" effort were concerned how we would get the ministry done efficiently. It certainly wasn't like a typical third-Friday session, but still it went okay, I'd say. Certainly, Dieta Duncan cooked a very delicious supper at her home and carried it to the church for the men and the volunteers. And then in the morning Cindy and Gene Lovelace prepared a scrumptious breakfast int he church kitchen.

On "downer" sort of, is that the church has a television, but it's the old analog type, without digital converter-box. So nobody got to watch the BCS bowl "championship" game. I put the word in parentheses because as far as I'm concerned the REAL championship was played Monday evening, in the Fiesta Bowl, when undefeated Boise STate defeated undefeated TCU. Therefore, I was not much concerned whether Texas or Alabama won Thursday - I was convinced that BSU could handle UT or Bama as well as they did my Horned Frogs of TCU.

But I digress. Instead of television or the movie video or DVD that we COULD see on that big TV screen, I was prepared to read. And then I got to talking with Justin Prendley, the young man who had also volunteered to stay overnite. He recently proposed to Courtney Frech of our church, and I found him to be a likable fellow and easy to talk with.

And so went the nite of Thursday, ending the first week of A.D. 2010 in a frigid Music City, with Eastwood Christian Church (Disciples) hosting ten homeless men for the "Room in the Inn" ministry.