Burn the Ships

"How did we get here? All cast away on a lonely shore." 

This year has left us weary.  Homeschooling can be tough.  Homeschooling and running your own business even tougher.  No matter how many times I've seen God's hand in it all and how he's worked through our lives, I struggle.  This year has become our year of "yes, Lord, I know you have it" but at the same time taking a deep breath expecting to drown.

Our vacation this year was planned to be unplanned.  We decided the time only out of desperation for needing a break.  We decided the place only because it was far away from the Great Plains where we work and in the opposite direction of some other mini adventures.  We planned one stop for an adventure and left the rest up to God and hoping He would take care of it, but truly not caring if He did, just as long as we got away.

I have struggled with contentment issues all year.  I feel blessed because we have so much work where it was mostly absent last year, however, I feel overwhelmed with the amount and then discontent and then mad at myself for essentially questioning God's plan.  It was a vicious cycle.  I was hoping vacation was going to snap me out of my sick cycle and be a fresh start for all of us because we all were struggling.

It has become a tradition before each major trip for me to purchase some good traveling music to upload into our van, that way if we can't find a good radio station, we have something new and fresh to enjoy.  This trip's music included For King and Country's new album (just came out the week we left) Burn the Ships. That song from the album pretty much became an anthem for our trip.

"Burn the ships, cut the ties

Send a flare up into the night

Say a prayer, turn the tide

Dry your tears and wave goodbye"

Just a month out from our trip, my cousin from Texas sent us her wedding invitation.  I knew the wedding was coming up, but with as hectic as things had been, had perished the thought of trying to make it.  God wanted us there though, the day of the wedding was one day before we planned to leave on our trip so we jumped at the chance. What a blessing to go and celebrate such a happy time with our loved ones.

The next day we were off to our only planned portion of our trip... Vicksburg.  Hubby had been to the battlefield when he was in junior college.  Bubby was thrilled beyond reason to be at a big battlefield - he's kind of a Civil War nut ;) He took pictures of just about every monument.  And of course, we had to get our Junior Ranger badges!  Another one down! ;)

Shorty loved the trenches.
Making shooting noises as
he dodged bullets.

While we were at Vicksburg, I was trying to figure out which of our relatives might have fought there during the Civil War.  Neither Hubby nor I did, but I did notice that the 78th Ohio fought at Vicksburg and two of my great-great grandma's brothers served with the 78th.  Both died of disease at Shiloh and Jackson in Tennessee before their regiment made its way to Mississippi.  With such heavy losses at Vicksburg, it made me ponder if they'd made it further if they would have survived the war even then.

A picture of one of my
great-great grandmother's brothers,
unnamed except for the relationship.

After Vicksburg, we wandered our way to our little rented house in Gulfport, MS.  It was a nice little house just a couple of blocks from the beach.  Our biggest worry was hurricane season (that was not even on my radar when I booked the house).  God took care of that one too.  We had another house we had scheduled to rent in Gulfport canceled on us by the owner. After the cancellation, friends suggested we travel further east to nicer beaches and more interesting spots.  We happened upon another house in Gulfport, and out of sheer exhaustion of trying to find something new, stuck with the plan for Gulfport as our base, which worked out in our favor with Hurricane Michael hitting the area further east from us.  My heart aches for the destruction and loss there :( 

The next week was full of adventures ranging from walking through a bayou (Bayou Sauvage, LA)

To going to a place very similar to Sea Life where Shorty was invited to pet a dolphin (much to his excitement, and Mookie's dismay!)

Much time was spent on the Gulfport beaches:

Blessings abounded. We felt freer than we had in months and just enjoyed being together. 

"Walk through the sorrow,

Out of the fire into tomorrow"

"Feel the wave disappear, we're coming clear, we're born again

Our hopeful lungs can breath again"

Our last full day was spent on Ship Island 10 miles offshore from Gulfport/Biloxi.  It was a culmination of all our favorites: wildlife, outdoors, and history.  If we make a trip back to this area, we will go there every time.

Fort Massachusetts on Ship Island

A shot of some dolphins following us back from
Ship Island. Taken by Bubby.

"Say a prayer, turn the tide

Dry your tears and say goodbye"

We left Gulfport the next day.  Taking a deep breath, saying "I trust you God" as we drove the 15 hours straight home so we could have one full day of rest on Sunday before we crossed into the unknown again.

The whole time we were gone on our break we didn't get one work phone call, not one e-mail for work of any consequence.  God put it all on hold.  The work week started again and we had a day of catch up and starting of school. Then Tuesday announced the arrival of two more projects for work.  God's timing.  I can't control it, so I don't like it, but it's perfect.

"Step into a new day

We can rise up from the dust and walk away"

"So light a match, leave the past, burn the ships

And don't you look back"

The Error of His Ways

Lafayette F. Mauzey was born in Ray County, Missouri in 1835.  His family had strong southern roots, typical for families in the newly admitted slave state. His mother's family had owned a family of African descent for multiple generations - a way of life that Lafayette eventually separated himself from.  His son Oscar, my great-great-grandfather, reported that the separation came after his father had seen the horrors of the treatment of the slaves.  Oscar detailed one such incident involving a man being tied to a tree stump as punishment from which the man died from exposure to the elements.

Grandpa Lafayette married in 1858 into a family staunch in their pro-slavery beliefs. The first years of Lafayette and Sarah's married life were spent in Platte County, Missouri in which slaves in 1850 accounted for 61% of the general population.  In 1860, the family was still at home in Platte County but by 1864 Lafayette had enlisted in the 12th Kansas volunteer regiment - enlisted to protect free-state Kansas from Sterling Price's advancement.  During his brief period with the 12th, he fought in the Battle of Westport in October 1864, which is known as the "Gettysburg of the West" and a turning point in Price's Confederate advance. 

Grandpa Lafayette's shift in his feelings towards slavery has always interested me.  Why? Surely he had noticed the horrors of slavery his whole life, was the neglectful murder of that one slave what brought on the change or was it more? My interest in other Bleeding Kansas and Civil War Kansas topics as of late caused me to take another look at possibly why Grandpa Lafayette shifted in his beliefs. I believe I found it, buried in information we already had.

Not long ago, a very distant cousin, and also a descendant of Lafayette gave my mom the Mauzey family Bible.  In it is this inscription:

"L. F. Mauzey was converted 

from the error of his ways

 in the year of our Lord 1864

 in Missouri, and moved

 to Kansas the same year." 

Perhaps Grandpa Lafayette's transformation was not just a philanthropic one, but a spiritual one as a result.  After the war, Grandpa Lafayette went on to become a minister of the Gospel, pro-Temperance and anti-gambling (both of the last two, his father was all but).  Isn't it funny how the answer to our genealogical questions are sometimes right under our noses?  This time it took a period of putting the research to the side and coming back at it with fresh eyes and asking different questions ;)

Part of my genealogy quest on this side of the family has been to pursue the histories and trails of the family that was unfortunate enough to be owned by my own.  I owe it to that family who had been enslaved by mine to preserve what past I can find on my end so hopefully it will benefit their descendants someday if they choose to pursue their past. The recent revisiting of the unnecessary murder of that poor man has pressed upon me to regroup my efforts to dig into this family's story once again.