This blog centers around a tiny little mark on the Indiana map. For those of you who have never had the pleasure of spending some time in Urbana, Indiana, let me explain. Imagine the absolute smallest town you know. Urbana is smaller. The people are great. All farmland and everyone there has a connection to the earth. It is a place where people pray for rain and each other. If you go into the local post office (only open three hours a day) you will know everyone there and there will be at least one relation. It was my joy to be there for seven years. Now, Urbana was not always a bump in the road. It was once a bustling little town. But Kroger's and Walmart in the next town over made the little stores and shops obsolete. However, there was a past. In my e-mail giving the link to the blog, I mentioned the Big Gun, who just happens to be from Urbana. So, ladies and gentlemen, I give you this blog written by Mrs. Tami Overman!  

URBANA—There Are a Million Stories in This Little Town. This is Just One.

Growing up in this little town in the seventies was the best of times. We had Cub Scouts baseball games, rode bikes to our friend’s houses to hang out, and played basketball in the hayloft in the barn. We enjoyed Jon and Virginia Hansing’s Sinclair Station for Nehi Pop, and Push Up Pops, and Myrval Kratzer’s Barber Shop for penny candy. We had the Urbana Post Office where some met to chat (i.e. me and my now husband). We had best friends and then we had acquaintances, but everyone knew who everyone was. We all had one thing in common, we were The Urbana Kids and that in itself was a bond for sure.

There were two great churches in town; The Grace United Methodist Church and St. Peter’s United Church of Christ. The winters were spent at Grace, and the summers at UCC. Not everyone in town attended those churches on Sunday. Some went to Wabash and others didn’t attend anywhere. There were 2 sides of the RR tracks. I lived on one side, and my Grandparents lived on the other.

As happens in life, we all grew up and went our separate ways. Some stayed in town, others moved away. Some led fairly good, normal lives, others struggled. Some stayed in touch and others we never heard from again. Fast forward several years and the invention of social media and ways to find and reach out to those that you haven’t seen in many, many years. Maybe even those that you knew and never really chatted with, due to age or other circumstances, but here they were, and they were most certainly still one of “The Urbana Kids.”

One “Urbana boy” in particular, “Mitch”, who was a few years younger than me, struggled in one way or another as a kid. He spent a lot of time out of the classroom and got to know the principal and office secretary pretty well. He didn’t attend either of our churches and I don’t believe he attended anywhere. I never knew what happened to him or his sibling, until; you guessed it, social media. I got a friend request a few years ago and decided to accept. I saw where he had a child, and a grandchild. He was a truck driver and had moved several states away. He drove the open road with his dog. But then after a very short time, I thought oh boy, why did I do this? He was very boisterous about politics on his social media account and even made some posts and sent some private messages that made me personally uncomfortable. He lost several friends over these things. I never unfriended him, but was very cautious. I personally know others who “were absolutely done with him!” Maybe I was just too nice, or maybe me not unfriending him was a God thing?

I realized he had disappeared from my feed and I wasn’t seeing any more posts. Then recently he appeared again and his posts were different. Very different. They were almost “sad in their nature.” I silently felt sorry for him. I liked some of his posts and even commented on a couple of them. I also noticed there were no political posts. NONE. Hum?

Fast forward to this past Sunday, I was sitting in the same little church in Urbana where the Pastor talked in the sermon about helping people who were struggling, and making sure we tell them about Jesus, so we have no regrets. Then he changed up the last song of the service with a different one, “The Altar and the Door” by Casting Crowns. WOW. That song hit me! It hit me so much that I looked it up immediately after church and posted it on my own Facebook feed. Now, skip ahead to Monday evening at 9:06 p.m. when my phone dings. I glance down to see, “How are you, Tami? I could handle a friend to talk to.” Just when I was thinking I can’t answer this, I have laundry, and dishes, and bills to pay and it is getting late, and I wanted to go to bed earlier tonight.………God nudged me and said, remember yesterday’s sermon? Remember the song you posted? So, here I was, replying back to Mitch and chatting until after 10:30 p.m. He used phrases like “I am a train wreck,” “not in a good place,” “at a very weak point,” and “I am lost bad.” I learned he had wrecked his semi in March and had died, but was brought back to life! I learned he was so happy his dog lived through that wreck also, as it was all he really had left. I finally drummed up the courage to ask, ”How do you feel about God?” From there, I learned he was a believer, but he was asking me why he was even still alive? I told him he was so capable of much more than he thought, and he could do hard things. I asked him to start praying and ask God to help him, and I would pray for him too. I even got him to laugh at one point. We finally said goodnight and I did pray for him. The next day at noon I got a message from him, thanking me for being a friend and caring enough to take the time to talk to him. He said I truly made him feel better about himself and he felt better about life. I realized we really were friends, we weren’t just acquaintances from the same little small town; we are The Urbana Kids, still to this day, and I am OK with that.

Funny thing is, I wasn’t even going to be in church on Sunday, but plans changed last minute. If I had not been, would I have been so willing to give up my time and answer that message? If the Pastor hadn’t have jumped out of the Book of John to start a new series and changed up the last song, would I have given up my time to answer that message? What if I had not answered it? There are a lot of what ifs. I think those were all God things. On Tuesday, I spent the night doing laundry, and paying bills, and it was all just fine. And, after I read my former Pastor, Larry’s blog, I reached out to ask him to pray for my friend too, and told him his story. He said he would also pray and then he said, “You need to write next week’s blog……….