Entries Tagged 'Church' ↓

A few weeks ago, I prepared a list of prayer points, at Centre Grove’s request, to help guide people in praying for us during this time of transition. I’ve updated the prayer points for this post and invite you to be in prayer for us as well as Centre Grove and West Side as we get started.

• Ask God to strengthen us as we continue to get settled in Clearfield.
• Ask God to grant us favor at Centre Grove and West Side and with the people of Clearfield. May God give us a renewed sense of vision and passion, as well as courage to lead others as God leads us.
• Ask God to bless Ethan who’s making his second major move in less than 5 months (of course, this time, he gets to keep the same parents, culture, language, etc. ). We plan to say more about how he’s handling the transition sometime later.
• Ask God to give us wisdom (knowing what’s right) and courage (doing what’s right, even when it’s hard).
• Ask God to bless our walks with God, including our daily time with God. May God give us listening hearts so that we may discern God’s yearning for ourselves, our family, and for the communities God calls us to lead.

See also: Praying for Pastors and Prayers for the Journey.

Thanks for your prayers!

Sometimes “tomorrow” is a bad word — “Instead of doing (fill-in-the-blank) today, I’ll do it tomorrow!” (i.e., procrastination).

But, other times, tomorrow is an inspiring word. Tomorrow gives us the opportunity to dream, envision, and plan for the future. Tomorrow is an opportunity to take what we’ve learned yesterday and today and apply it on the next leg of our journey.

Scripture cautions about how we view tomorrow, though. James wrote …

How do you know what your life will be like tomorrow? Your life is like the morning fog—it’s here a little while, then it’s gone. What you ought to say is, “If the Lord wants us to, we will live and do this or that.” Otherwise you are boasting about your own plans, and all such boasting is evil. (James 4.14-16)

And, Jesus said …

So don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today’s trouble is enough for today. (Matthew 6.34)

However, Jesus also talked about the importance of looking ahead in counting the cost of being his disciple, saying:

… don’t begin until you count the cost. For who would begin construction of a building without first calculating the cost to see if there is enough money to finish it? Otherwise, you might complete only the foundation before running out of money, and then everyone would laugh at you. They would say, ‘There’s the person who started that building and couldn’t afford to finish it!’ (Luke 14.28-30)

I think one lesson is that we need to entrust our tomorrows to God — don’t take them for granted, don’t worry about what may or may not happen — but be prepared to pay the price of following Jesus and helping others follow Jesus, too, for the transformation of the world!

So tonight, June 30, 2008, we look ahead to tomorrow when we (officially) begin the next leg of our journey in Clearfield. We look forward, with great anticipation, to all that God will do in and through us as we seek to serve God faithfully!

Picking up where I left off in The Move 1.0, we arrived in Clearfield just before 6:30 am, Thursday, and the movers showed up a few minutes later.

Overall, it was a pretty smooth day of unloading.

But the big news of the day here in Clearfield took place at Trinity UMC, where a shooting occurred in Trinity’s basement (at about the time we arrived in Clearfield, ourselves).

The incident is being covered by several media outlets, including: The Progress, The Altoona Mirror, and WTAJ TV. According to these reports, the latest news (as of this post) is the shooting victim has died and the shooter later shot himself (after a confrontation with police) and is listed in critical condition.

Our thoughts and prayers are with the friends and families of those involved as well as everyone in the community who’s been touched by this tragic occurrence!

Aside from the news of the day, we are glad to have the move behind us. While we have a lot of work to do, unpacking and getting settled, we do not expect to have to put in any more all-nighters!

We are grateful for everyone who has made (and are making) this transition as smooth as possible. Some people the Manor Hill Charge (as well as Joleen’s mom) watched Ethan while we packed over the course of the past week or so. Without them, we’d *still* be packing!

And here in Clearfield, members from West Side and Centre Grove are providing evening meals Thursday/Friday and Monday/Tuesday, respectively. They’re also setting up baby sitting for Ethan on Monday and Tuesday so that we can get as far as we can in the process of getting settled!

Thanks to all who are helping with our transition!

I wanted to write this post yesterday but as you’ll soon discover that wasn’t much of an option!

On Tuesday (the day before our loading day), we got up around 6:30 am to finish packing. We knew we had a good day’s work ahead of us, but we didn’t know we had *that* much work left to do!

We had planned to finish packing, then spend the night at Joleen’s mom’s house in Williamsburg (35 minutes away). Toward late afternoon, it became painfully clear that we were going to be up late. Around 7:30 pm, Joleen dropped Ethan off and her mom’s house, then returned home to continue packing.

As it turned out, we were indeed up late, so late, in fact, that we *never* got to sleep — we worked all night. Ironically, we did one final walkthrough shortly after 6:00 am. We arrived back down stairs at 6:32 am, just as the movers were getting out of their vehicle.

Needless to day, it was a challenging night. But, of course, our work wasn’t done at 6:30. For most of the day, we supervised, answered questions, and after the movers left, we had some final work to do. All in all, we were up for 34 to 36 hours (I can’t remember for sure! ), working virtually non-stop.

When we arrived in Williamsburg (late afternoon), we joined Ethan, whose nap was already in progress, and got about an hour of sleep, ourselves.

After 7 hours or so of sleep overnight, we got up at 4:30 am to drive to meet the movers in Clearfield for the unloading.

I’ll pick up there in the next post.

Sunday was a day of saying goodbye. We spent our final Sunday worshiping with, and teaching, the people we have been serving in our current ministry appointments. It was an emotionally intense day.

We’re grateful for the time we’ve had here in the Juniata Valley and Huntingdon areas, for the people we’ve had the honor of knowing, loving, serving, and leading. We pray that the seeds that have been planted in our time here will continue to bear fruit for God’s kingdom in the years ahead!

We also pray for the pastors to whom we pass the leadership torch. May God use them to lead the congregations we leave behind that they may accomplish God’s purposes!

Goodbyes are hard, but they go with the territory. With our final Sunday behind us, we now turn our attention more fully to preparing for our journey ahead.

Well, that an finishing up our packing on Tuesday, moving to Clearfield on Wednesday and Thursday, and then unpacking!

Look who’s the newest member of the Manor Hill United Methodist Men (UMMen)!

Wednesday evening, Ethan and I visited the 42nd annual building of picnic tables. They made 93 tables this year. The 6-foot tables were sold out before they were ever made! However, there are 8-foot tables for $110 and 10-foot table for $120.

Call 814-643-0779, 814-667-3484, or 814-667-2485 if you’re interested in purchasing a table. Be sure to bring a truck or trailer and help to load your table.

Also, the UMMen were glad to have Katie home from college to lend a hand.

Thanks to Patty Stever for sending us the photos. Click on the thumbnails below to see the full images.