What a Week!!

Last week Bobby and I were invited to attend MNA’s Church Planting Assessment. No, we didn’t go “looking for a new job” there. No, we don’t have plans to start planting a church immediately. Nothing like that. This (church planting) was just something that God has laid upon Bobby’s heart for some time now, and through talking to some trusted sources about the topic, we were encouraged to apply. Just apply, nothing else. Well, we got invited. So we said, ok, let’s just go and see what happens. Just go, nothing else. Well, we were approved. And believe me, getting approved is a pretty big deal. (Not saying that we’re a big deal, just saying that getting approval is a big deal. Got it?) So what does approval mean for us? I have no idea! I view it as an “open door,” rather than not getting approved, which would have been a big fat “closed door.” We spent a long time during the week meeting with talented church planters, assessors, and professional counselors to see if there were any hindrances in our marriage, our relationship with our coworkers & peers, our ability to relate to others, and of course our strengths, weaknesses, and even potential blindspots in our ministry. We were encouraged and reaffirmed in many ways, and advised in some areas that we (mostly Bobby) need more practical experience. Wow… what a week! So knowing the end of the story, I’m going to back it up to give you the full (interesting)

We left home at 2:00 pm on Sunday, Feb 8… 2 hours after Bobby returned from a 3 day youth retreat. Talk about tired! I was originally supposed to go also (I went last year) but am very glad I didn’t so that I could get everything packed and the house/animals ready, not to mention sleep. Someone had to be alert enough to drive! We drove about 8 hours and then stayed in a hotel somewhere in South Carolina. Woke up early Monday morning and drove the remaining 3+ hours to Atlanta, stopping for a "QT" on the way, of course. Yum! We checked into our hotel and then met some of the other candidates and had lunch with them at ChickFilA. (Everyone talks about going to the south for ChickFilA, but we have them here in southwest PA and Morgantown. After lunch, the assessment officially began. I don’t remember much from that afternoon, but I know that by 7 pm when we finished, I was drained! I think we just went back to our room, unpacked, and crashed for the night. Tuesday was a 7-7 day … a really good day of strategy exercises, interviews, and worship, but very tiring. Fortunately we had a free hour in the evening to “get off the compound” and go visit some family. Then it was back to the hotel and time for bed. Wednesday was another good, yet exhausting 12+ hour day, followed by a LOST-watching party with 3 other couples in the hotel room. Last day of the Assessment: Thursday. We had breakfast and a time of worship, then we had to wait one very long hour to hear our fate. So what did we do to pass the time? We drove to the closest QT to get another $1.09 frozen coffee drink of course! Yummo. Gosh, I miss QT. So as you know already, we got the good news, and then had to stay for 5 more hours for an orientation. The material presented to us was very informative and beneficial (I love being part of a denomination!) but we were all wiped-out. I hope I can remember all the great things they told us. Then at 6:00, we were dismissed and all parted ways. Side note - by Thursday afternoon, most of us were already facebook friends, and there was a group established to commemorate the event. Awesome. So off we went... on our way to see the Spencers! We rolled into Aiken around 10 (I think) and visited until we just couldn't cohesively talk anymore due to exhaustion. We got a great night's sleep and then went out to breakfast at a cool little coffee/pastry shop owned by hippies. I had the most delicious chocolate chip muffin. mmmm. Seeing Shaun, Danielle & Eva was a wonderful end to a really great week (or so we thought it was the end, see the next paragraph...) - just wish Lily would have made her appearance while we were there! After breakfast, we were on our way home.

Left Aiken at 10:30, we were on route to arrive home around 6:30 until we got to good old Princeton, WV. Oh, how I hate you, Princeton, WV... A few miles prior, we filled up our gas tank and when we got back on the highway, I was driving and noticed a problem in the shifting. Our car is an automatic and it has a special kind of transmission that makes for smooth, unnoticeable shifting, so this was really weird. It would stop, then a few minutes later, it would happen again. It happened about 4 times and Bobby called the service department at the dealership where we bought it and told them. They said, well, maybe you got some bad fuel, but as long as the check engine light isn’t on (it wasn’t), then there’s nothing mechanically wrong and it should go away. Well, wouldn’t you know… not even 3 minutes after he hung up with them, the check engine light came on and I started loosing power and the shifting problem was much worse. Freaking out, I got over to the far right lane – keep in mind, we are in the major hills of West Virginia, there are 6 lanes on this highway and semi-trucks everywhere! Somehow, by the grace of God, I was able to get to the next exit and I saw my “savior,” Walmart. I kept telling the car, just get us to Walmart! Just get us to Walmart!! And we did. (Somewhere along the way, we called the serviceman back and he said, get off the road ASAP, duh!) I love Walmart, but this was probably the happiest I’ve ever been to be there. Not that I wanted to be there, but that we made it off the highway alive. So we pulled out the warranty information and were thankful that our car only had 26000 miles on it to qualify for the 80000 mile warranty, which included roadside assistance. We called them, they called every mechanic nearby, and everyone, including the Dodge dealer 3 miles away, was closing for the day and wouldn’t open until Monday morning. Fantastic! We freaked a little, then decided to have them call us a tow truck and have our car taken to the Dodge dealer to sit there all weekend and we got a rental car (which should also be covered) to come home. It was so sad watching our “new” car being put on a tow truck – a first for me. But no, the excitement doesn’t end there… first of all, when we got to Enterprise (right at closing time) there were 6 people ahead of us to rent a car. I am not kidding. In a town of 6000 people, .1% of them were renting a car at that exact moment – crazy. We thought for sure they would run out of cars before our turn came. But lo and behold, since we had called while waiting for our tow truck, they saved us a car. A miniature 2009 chevy aveo, which we soon came to hate, but nonetheless, it was a ride home, which we desperately needed. We then had to transfer all of our stuff (a week’s worth of luggage) from our broken car to this rental. I was annoyed, but was so thankful that we were able to do this in the parking lot of the dealership rather than the side of the highway with super big trucks zooming by! Excitement not over yet. We began our journey home, realizing that we should have been home and unpacked by now, and we are still 220 miles away, so we stopped at Sonic. What’s the rush now? We made it all the way to Morgantown and I asked Bobby to get off the highway and get some milk at Sheetz and then we could just take back roads home (the way he goes to and from work/school everyday.) We got about 1.5 miles away from Sheetz and out of the blue we hit a humungous POT HOLE! Immediately we knew something was wrong because we heard air hissing out of one of the 13 inch tires. Bobby pulled over and yep, we had a flat! UGH!!! We made it back to Sheetz where we took it off and put the donut/spare on and finally (FINALLY) drove home (at a rate of 30 mph) and when we got there, we didn’t even unpack the car, just went in the house, said hi to the animals, brushed our teeth and crashed into bed. Wow, what a crazy Friday the 13th.

Unfortunately I do not have any pictures from the entire week. I really wanted to take one while our car was being loaded onto the tow truck, but Bobby wouldn't allow me. Just so everyone knows, the rental was returned today and our car is back home with us, safe and sound. whew.

New Post

The videos of my last post are blocking my links section so this is "filler post." I promise something juicier next time.











Why are the videos so big, does anyone know?










Did everyone watch the Super Bowl? GO STEELERS!! :-)

Best Commercial from Superbowl 43

It's a remake of this one from 1979:

Super Bowl trivia

Taken from Cleveland.com (boo!)

The big game is Sunday: Super Bowl XLIII pits the Arizona Cardinals against the Pittsburgh Steelers in Tampa, Fla. While you’re munching on snacks and enjoying the zany $3 million-per-30-seconds commercials, consider the following facts and trivial items:

1. An unofficial survey estimates 1.4 million people call off sick the day after the game.

2. Antacid sales go up 20 percent the day after the game.

3. The second highest number of credentials to cover a Super Bowl were issued — 4,589 — from a record 633 media organizations.

4. Of the 13 most-watched TV programs, 12 are Super Bowls. (The lone exception at No. 1 is the final episode of M*A*S*H in 1983).

5. Tickets are $1,000, $800 and $500.

6. President Obama reportedly will cheer for the Steelers.

7. The game will be broadcast in 30 languages to 220 countries.

8. Members of the winning team each receive $78,000. The other team’s players take home a paltry $40,000 for a day’s work.

9. The winning team is awarded the Vince Lombardi Trophy. The sterling silver trophy is created by Tiffany & Co. and is valued at more than $25,000.

10. Sales of big-screen TVs go up a reported 500 percent during Super Bowl week.

SOURCES: Associated Press, New York Times News Service, Nielsen, Newsday, Doubleday, St. Petersburg Times

While I'm Waiting

We went and saw the movie, Fireproof, last night. We had heard great things about it, but were still skeptical, as we are with all low-budget Christian films. Yeah, they may have a good message, but the acting is usually horrible, the lines are super cheesy, and worst of all, the "good message" is usually tainted with a lot of moralism. Just pray harder, have more faith, etc. These are not the reasons that good things happen to us and we cannot make God love us more by doing them. When we put too much emphasis on ourselves, we are just going to be disappointed when we can't live up to those expectations. And no matter how hard we try, we will always fail. But God doesn't fail.

Back to the movie... since we had somewhat low expectations, I am very glad we still gave it a chance. We took 8 kids from our youth group to a local church that was showing it. We laughed, I cried - one of our girls yelled out, "Oh no, you didn't!" at one point, and we really laughed! I think they did a really good job at presenting the need for a Savior and tying that in with the covenant of marriage (even though, who's discussions really go like that between a father & son?!?)

But the part that touched my heart the most was a song called, While I'm Waiting. Even though the context was the husband was waiting for his wife to give their marriage another chance, I couldn't help but think of my own life. I heard the words, "While I’m waiting, I will serve You. While I’m waiting, I will worship." and I started to cry. As I keep waiting for the Lord to bless us with a baby, I am going to focus on serving Him and worshipping Him. "I’m waiting on You, Lord. Though it’s not easy. But faithfully, I will wait. Yes, I will wait."

Pittsburgh's Goin to the Superbowl!

I think I'll stay in bed tomorrow

Missed this by 10 minutes

Last night I stayed a little late at work to finish up some projects. Normally I leave at 4:00, yesterday I stayed until 4:50. Normally I go to the post office everyday around 11:00 am, yesterday I went at 4:40. Guess what happened at 5:00?























An entire row of buildings next to the post office (which is 1 1/2 blocks away from the church) caught on fire. I can't believe I drove past these buildings just a fraction of time before they became ablaze.

Since we live about 20 minutes from Carmichaels (where this happened) we didn't hear about it until 8:30 pm. We started making calls and were very relieved to hear that no one, not even all the pets in the groomer, which was on the first floor of the building on fire, were injured. Wow.

Here is Pittsburgh's Channel 4 News story with a video and several photos.

This is what it looks like today.

Epiphany

One thing I have enjoyed greatly about being involved in church administration is learning more about the liturgical calendar. I don't know why I am so fascinated with it frankly, perhaps because it is still so new to me. (liturgical holidays just simply are not celebrated in my former church. and by "former church" I do not mean kirk of the hills; I am talking about my "before-bobby" church.) So anyway... today, January 6th, is Epiphany. Maybe many of you have heard of it, but not sure what it is (like me). In general, the theme of it is Jesus' manifestation of Himself as God. We in the western church celebrate the arrival of the wise men to visit Jesus (Matthew 2:1-8). (so for us that means the 3 wise men get to join the nativity scene on our mantle. prior to today they were over on the computer desk - approximately two years away.) So gather round and let us all sing, "We Three Kings." Or as I just found on You Tube, play it on Guitar Hero. What on earth?!?! (seriously, click on the link, this is crazy.) Well, I guess I will end this post now that I have just ruined the sanctity of the holiday...

Ordination - finally!

By that title I only partially mean, "finally, he is ordained!" The primary reason for the title is that the event occurred nearly a month ago and it's taken me until now to post it. For those of you who may be unfamiliar with this journey, I'll give a little background. Now I'm only starting the story with seminary, which he began in August 2003; we all know that many years of prayer & thought went into the process, let alone the Lord preparing him for such an endeavor... So anyway, Bobby & I moved to St Louis 3 months after getting married and he began studies at Covenant Theological Seminary. Four very long (yet fun & exciting) years later, he graduated. With a desire to pursue a PhD, we found out that he would have to obtain another Masters degree (UGH!) so he enrolled in the MA in History degree program at West Virginia University. And to our great fortune, my aunt & uncle offered for us to live in their (extra) log cabin which is only 30-45 minutes (depending on a lot of things) from campus. Yay. So we moved in on Memorial Day weekend, 2007. Of course once we were settled, the first thing we did (after getting drivers licenses & Giant Eagle advantage cards) was look for a PCA church and we found one 20 minutes away. Double yay. A few months after attending there, we met with a couple elders, offered our assistances and soon Bobby was the Youth Director. We were initially scared of teens (I mean, youth ministry), but we quickly grew to love them and this responsibility. Then as Bobby's relationship grew with the church, the Session, and our new Pastor, he was offered a call as Asst Pastor of Youth & Families, and could now pursue ordination. So exciting. Now the fun began. He studied for weeks & weeks, then took 5 written exams - he passed, then moved onto oral exams, and passed those too, and was recommended to the Pittsburgh Presbytery for ordination as a teaching elder. Rock on. Now my fun began. We started planning the event, buying cute little napkins, ordering special bulletins, and preparing for our guests. The date was set for November 23, 2008 at 3:00 here at Greene Valley Presbyterian Church. And now that we've made it to the event, here are some pictures. I have more to get from other people, but these were a few that I captured on my camera.

Bobby receiving the charge from Pastor Keith Larson.





















Taking vows.




















Laying on of hands by the ordained PCA elders who were in attendance. We were so thrilled that Erik was able to participate in this! This is the moment when I started crying.




















The 2 hands benediction I mentioned in my last post. He finally got to do it and was too nervous to raise them all the way up. oh well, it was still awesome.




















And now... cake!