Status Report

It's been a wild couple of months! By looking at my blog posts you might think I've pretty much dropped off of the face of the earth... I'm still here... just busy and somewhat preoccupied.

We've celebrated Michele's graduation with a great party with our family and some friends coming from some of our former churches to wish her well and even a family from the Corry area who lived down the street from us when we adopted the girls who knew us before we were in the pastoral ministry... that was A LOT of fun!

Sarah left July 3rd for a Leadership Development program (sort of a military school setting) and we finally were able to visit this past week. (It's over 3 1/2 hours away from us!) She's still settling in and adjusting to the different routines.

Josh is finally 'getting it' with this whole potty training thing. PRAISE THE LORD!!!!

My mom is going through intensive chemotherapy to deal with her lung cancer... I guess the doctor says they've pretty much wiped it out... now they just simply want to try and make sure it never comes back (as best as anyone can ensure that at this point in medical history). She has a GREAT attitude and has become quite an inspiration for me.

Our church has just come through Vacation Bible School... a joint VBS with the Presbyterian and Christian Missionary Alliance churches in town (along with a stray Lutheran who just wanted to help out). They did SONFORCE KIDS where the theme is centered on the idea that we are all called to be special agents for Jesus Christ. Phenomenal excitement with those kids! (And they even had classes for the teens and the adults!) Last year I got to come each night for their VBS and it was just as wonderful and energy packed. One of the neatest things is to hear some of the music being hummed or sung by kids (and adults) afterwards!

We have finally finished the preliminaries of our building project... Any day we expect to have the permit in hand and break ground for our elevator/entranceway project on the church building. In anticipation, we have been cleaning out storage closets and garages so that we can compact our 'stuff' and be able to get to everything we might need when a whole section of our building becomes inaccessible because of construction. I am AMAZED at how much STUFF can be collected. Thus far, we've filled two huge dumpsters (the big roll off kind)... and of course, we weren't throwing away everything... so that gives you some idea of how much stuff we'd accumulated!

I've now been back to work just over a month and am pretty much back to the full swing of things. Having missed two complete months, I've had A LOT to do in the office end of the ministry, but I have gotten back to some visitation. Part of my problem is that I still get tired easily... so I do what I can and then back off for a little bit and then go again. A couple of times I've simply laid down for a nap when Josh does.

One more note: The Mix family has bought a camper... it's a pop-up style and I get to pick it up later today and we're taking it to Cherry Run Camp for what remains of the 2007 campmeeting. When our last pop-up reached the point where it needed more help than either gay or I could give it, we sold it. That was about 2001. We've tried the tent thing somce then, but with the changes in our health (especially in the sleeping) the tenting just wasn't working. Hopefully this allows us to use our days off and the occasional vacation to get out of the parsonage and "Be Still" and take some "Sabbath Rest."

That's the way things are here...