Update from the Rainwater Family

We moved to Houston after Randy's graduation from Harding College in Searcy, AR. Mike and Debi Kirksey had a lot to do with us considering the move to Houston (and Randy's 1st full-time job). We became friends with them our sophomore year in college, when they were Mike Kirksey and Debi Baten. After their marriage, we lived in the same married student apartments on campus (you'll have to ask Debi about the contact paper in their apartment and the cinder block walls). Through Debi's dad, Randy learned of an opening in the accounting department at Champion Papers where Jack Baten was employed. Long story short, after graduation, we loaded all our prized belongings in the smallest enclosed U-Haul trailer available and headed to Houston with the Kirkseys. Thanks to the hard work of Leita Rue Baten and Virginia Kirksey (who did the apartment hunting for both couples), we moved into brand new apartments near Hobby Airport and that's when our history began with the congregation at Sun Valley Church of Christ!

While living on the south side of town, we managed to buy our first house, had two children (Stephanie, now 31, and Keith, now 29), and made some wonderful friends and memories at Sun Valley. With a change of jobs for Randy (from Champion Papers to Dailey Oil Tools), it made sense for us to make the move to Kingwood to cut down on Randy's commute to Conroe, TX. While it was very hard to leave our family at Sun Valley, we have enjoyed living in Kingwood (known as the Liveable Forest) and being members at Kingwood Church of Christ. It was helpful in that we knew one family, when we started attending Kingwood--Ted & Carol Poe and family.

Randy currently works for American Bureau of Shipping next to the Wyndham Hotel near Greenspoint Mall (about a 20 minute commute from our house). He is a director in the financial side of the company and has been with them for 10+ years. He doesn't travel as much as he use to, but will be going to London the first of September for a director's meeting.

I work two days a week (T & TH) in the church office at Kingwood Church of Christ. My job responsibility includes typing, formatting, and printing the church bulletin. It's been an interesting job and working part-time has afforded me time to run errands and do things with friends. We live less than 5 minutes from church.

Stephanie is back living in Kingwood with her son, Lincoln. Unfortunately, on December 1, 2006, her husband (Keith) died of melanoma cancer. He was 30 years old and left Stephanie, 29, and Lincoln, just 6-months old. At the time, they were living in Greenville, TX near the Mesquite/Garland area, where Keith had an excellent job as a programmer with L3 Communications and Stephanie was planning to be an at-home mom (retiring from teaching) to take care of Lincoln. After Keith's passing, she and Randy worked on getting her home ready to put on the market (I got the fun job of babysitting!). It went on the market in mid-March and sold in July (making her a profit in the short time they had lived in the home). She and Lincoln moved in with us in July of '07 until she moved into the home she is currently leasing. They live less than 5 minutes away from us, attend church with us, and I'm able to help her with childcare. She easily secured a job teaching kindergarten at the Oaks Elementary School and will be there again this year (her 8th year of teaching). She is a super mom/daughter and we continue to be amazed at her strong faith and all that she does as a single parent. She has a blog that she continues to update. Take a look for yourself...if you go back to the beginning and read forward, you'll learn her inner thoughts, struggles, and hopes for herself and for Lincoln (http://www.mccordfamilytx.blogspot.com/). Our hope and her prayer is that God will put a Christian man in her future!

Our son, Keith, lives in Michigan where he works for the University of Michigan. He is single. Unfortunately, we haven't seen him in a while.

For fun (besides being Pops and Meme to Lincoln--which we love!), Randy and I belong to a GWRRA chapter where we enjoy riding our Honda Goldwing motorcycle. With over 54,000 miles on our bike, we're seen a lot of the south; have flown out to CA twice to rent bikes and ride along the coast and through the Redwood Forest; up to Michigan to get Keith settled into grad school at the University of Michigan to work on his doctorate in political science…just to name a few. As a member of GWRRA, safety is first, so we wear all the proper gear when riding. We just recently purchased a camper that we can pull behind our motorcycle. Several years ago, we rode with Dennis and Jan McBee in a benefit ride.

We are healthy and blessed and are hoping to attend the Sun Valley reunion. The last time we saw folks from Sun Valley was at Ryan Kirksey’s wedding.

Always,
Sharon Rainwater

Photos below: 2003 Family Photo with son, Keith, and Stephanie and her husband, Keith; their pride and joy, Lincoln, helping wash his Pops' truck; and the last picture is what Randy and Sharon do for fun--