Gypsy on the Move: From Norman, Oklahoma to Lexington, Kentucky

Our years in Norman were amazing. God showed His faithfulness over and over. Our six heart-bound years in Nepal were similar to our six heart-bound years in Norman. We are still heart-friends with most of those from each place today. It was what soon became a pattern of six year time investments in the lives of people, and the binding of hearts. Personally, Norman was a time of healing, a time of resting from many moves for our family, and a time of finding an earthly father in Dow Robinson, our pastor of 40 years.

We had many festive times and many hours of fellowship in Christ during these years. Below are just a few pictures of those times. You can see Richard McAfee in the front of the group photo, with Lois on the left, Dow on the right and Bill and I next to them at table.  

Mike McKee was next to me and I tried to put some confetti on his head. I’m not sure what we were celebrating here, but it was fun!

I continued teaching and loving children in K-1, developing primers that revealed Jesus, and seeing kids learn to read and love to learn. 

We had a school board of godly men, shown below: Bill Leal, James Beale, Mike McKee, Dow Robinson, Mel Oxsen, and Dick Niven. The middle four are already in heaven--probably having a great time without us yet!

Ladies' Teas where we shared God's Word and encouraged each other and prayed for each other were also special. Here we are gathered at Miiriam Oxsen's home--treasured friends for this life and the next: Grace Robinson (Dow's mom), LiPiSu Wu, Mim, Lynn Fisher, Kim Foster and Frankie Senter. 

So we had a group of forever friends, many children’s lives invested in, and our house on the land nearing completion! Three years after moving out to the land, the house, windows and doors were finally in and it was beginning to look a lot like home! The kids and I had done much of the painting while Bill had done most of the hard work, including plumbing and electric, along with the help of friends from the church. Here's Joshua's version of the house after listening to my verbal description--without seeing any photos!

Meanwhile, Bill was still working full time for the University of Oklahoma where he was promoted several times, finally becoming the Assistant Director for Data Processing.

One funny memory was a surprise party Bill planned for my birthday. To do this he had Jonathan fake a fall and call for me to come upstairs. Meanwhile, Bill opened the door and let friends in for the party, who all yelled "Surprise" when I came down!" The grands love this story and Isaac did this picture. 

During these years I had many dreams that seemed to be prophetic. Sometime in the years, I had had a dream of a huge river that came and split the school house in half. (Ethan's signature is on the upper half of his drawing of my dream--he's our artist.) Half of the people were on one side and I and others on the other, floating down the river. I could remember exactly who was on each side. I shared this dream with Bill and with Dow. As it turned out, there were those in the church who objected to the leadership and were strongly critical. 

With conflict rising, it became clear that the school needed to close down for now. So we did, and the next year our kids attended the Covenant School in Oklahoma city where I taught 26 wonderful kindergarten and first grade kids. It was a long drive from Norman to OKC every day, but we spent time in the car singing to the Lord, and talking about life. There was also a black van the kids well remember that took a load of kids every day. 

Then, surprise, oh, surprise, we saw where the river in my dream was taking us! We received an invitation to move to Lexington, Kentucky where I would get to teach in the church school where one of our leaders, Paul Petrie, was pastor. Bill would work as a SAS instructor, and Dow had also been invited to move and set up a Bible and missions training institute. We were excited and prayerful. As it turned out, eight different families all decided to move to Lexington, including my sister’s family, and Mary Fleming, Bill’s boss who had given her heart to Jesus and had become a integral part of our family.

It now felt like Norman wasn't home anymore. But what do you do with an unfinished house on ten acres of land at the end of a quarter mile long dirt road? The housing market had crashed because of the oil and things didn’t look promising. We talked with our realtors and they said to wait to put it on the market until later. 

But a few days later Richard, the realtor, called and said they have a couple who were looking for an unfinished two story house on about ten acres in a wooded secluded place!!!!!  The couple came, saw our house, loved it and bought it.

One important change for me during this time was my name. For many years I had gone by the name Dotty. I had moved between sixth and seventh grade and began in a new school, Clark Jr. High. Being insecure, I deliberately changed my name from Dorothy to Dotty, hoping to attract more friends, thinking Dotty was a more popular name. 


So for 25 years I was known as Dotty. Many of you reading this still know me as Dotty. But the Lord said that He had named me Dorothy because I was His gift. Dorothy means “gift of God.” That was hard for me to believe until He healed my heart. So 25 years after being Dotty, I again became Dorothy, His gift. Below is Isaac's drawing of both names.

So now comes the next move. Are you dizzy yet? I think our kids were. Leaving friends, making new ones is not easy whatever age you are, but the teen years are hardest. Yet the kids voiced no objections for the move and we made plans to complete the sale and move to Kentucky in the summer. We know now this was yet another hard move, leaving friends, especially for Jenny.

Onward to Lexington!