Just a brief update:
- My family has been sick off and on (mostly on) for about two and half weeks now. It started as the flu and kind of went through the family that way. After we healed up it turned into the cold. My wife went to bed at six o'clock tonight with most of the children shortly after. Grace (our almost three year old) and I did the dishes for mom so she wouldn't have to face that in the morning.
- We did heal up enough to take a short family vacation into the mountains of West Virginia last week. We borrowed a pop-up camper from a "friend" so we could stay in a state park. We got to the state park and began setting up the camper only to realize that there were big rips in the canvas and the heater didn't work. Did I mention that it was below freezing and the wind was whipping like crazy? We huddled up in one end of the camper and it collapsed. We then huddled up on another bed to try to get through at least one night. At 1:00 a.m. Grace woke up and threw up all over the place. We went up to the lodge and asked if they had a room. Praise God they did! That's where we spent the rest of our vacation. It snowed about ten inches while we were there. When we went to check out, they discounted our room enough to make up for the campground lot that we had paid for in advance. God's provisions always amaze me.
- It was my turn to preach this weekend at our fellowship. It was my first time preaching here. It had been about a year since I preached last. There were the typical nerves to hurdle, but God got me through. My family couldn't make it because of sickness so I gave them a practice run at home before leaving for church. That helped a ton. I preached on a topic that has been with me for about a year now and strongly for about two to three months: making sure your heart is in a condition to be used (and even accepted) by God. I used many passages, but a few were the story of the rich young ruler. Jesus turned him away because something else had his heart (his possessions). Various pharisees, and also those that called "Lord, Lord" that he sent away.
- Had a brief discussion with the guy I work with today who is Methodist. I asked him about the lesbian Methodist pastor that they made step down. His response: "I don't know why they fill the news with this junk! This isn't news!" He was the first to jump on the band-wagon when the Catholic sex-abuse scandals were rampant in the news, bashing the priest and looking for someone to listen to the latest joke he had heard. He also stated "I thought we were supposed to be tolerant of those who aren't like us. Why are they doing this?" One thing to note: the Methodist do allow homosexual clergy as long as they are committed to celibacy. I found that interesting.
- God has been putting some families in our lives who seem to be like-minded and mostly without church homes. Not sure what's going on with that. Not all are too local to us, but some are. I have a hard time encouraging these people to attend our church because we are about forty-five minutes from church and further yet from most of the families of our church. I really like our church, but it's hard to establish a sense of community when you are so far away.
- Ross and I took the last air-conditioner out tonight. I always drag my feet about it. You never know when the Indian Summer might hit. It's now November so I think we're pretty safe. Actually for the last three weeks it's been more procrastination than anything else. We also got some wood cut up.
- We had to run out on Saturday to get some animal feed. When we got home both of our gardens were plowed up. We have great neighbors!
God bless!!
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