Thanksgiving

This being the first Thanksgiving I've been in the states in 3 years, I'm pretty pumped. Here's what I've done so far...

I flew up to Detroit, Michigan last Friday to be in attendance, along with all my other extended family members, at my Aunt Patty's college graduation! (Congrats Aunt Patty....we're all proud of you!) Since I was up here for that, I decided that I would take advantage of the time I had to visit some churches in the area. My Uncle John pastors Pennway Church of God in Lansing so I enjoyed hearing him speak this past Sunday.

Today I visited Pastor Greg Capsel at Millington Church of God in Millington, MI (about 1.45 hours away from Lansing). I'm telling you, if I wasn't on staff at a church and didn't live so far away, I would be attending his church. The building itself is beautiful and is used for all kinds of ministry...including housing the local high school's basketball practice 4 days a week. No better way to serve the community than to allow your resources to be used. Then spending time with this intellegent man of God was such an honor. I left after about 35 minutes wishing I would have had a tape recorder in order to replay all that he said. Thanks for your time Pastor Greg.

I'm hoping to visit more churches tomorrow and then this coming Sunday, but I'm really looking forward to just taking some time to relax this weekend with my cousin Christy. Christy and I are like peas in a pod. Whenever our families are together, we are inseperable. Obviously since I've been out of country the past couple of years, we haven't had much time to hang out, so I'm really looking forward to her coming back up to Michigan tomorrow night!

Obviously I'm a bit behind

I just haven’t gotten the hang of this blogging thing just yet. I feel like if I write about everything I’m doing, you readers will get bored. So then what I do is write about nothing. But today I have a couple of updates....(work, Global Missions fundraising, and personal).

Work (South Lake Wales Church of God)...I can honestly say I don’t know that I could enjoy work more. I LOVE IT! I love my boss, my co-workers, church people. My big projects right now are to work with our new LifeGroups starting up. We have some GREAT leaders of LifeGroups and to be honest, if I wasn’t leading a group, I would have a hard time picking out a group to go to.

Last weekend, Nov 9, I had to preach at South. I’ve preached before, but it’s a bit different here. First of all, it’s different b/c there are two services. So just at the point you think you’re done, here comes a whole nother service that you have to be ampped up for. The second thing is that I was preaching in front of people that I’ve known for about 16 years now. That can be intimidating b/c they know me so well, but then at other times it was encouraging b/c I could think that no matter what I did, they would still love me. Long story short, I spoke on ‘calling’ and told them about my calling. The scripture was from Judges 6 and 7 with the story of Gideon and it followed my train of thought of going in to war with a trumpet and jar. Overall I felt like things went well and I’m glad that I don’t have to do that again anytime soon!

Global Missions....God’s doing some good things. I just spoke with a church a church last Saturday that I think is going to help with my start-up funds. Also, I turned in an application to a church in Olathe, Kansas last week. My brochures from the Global Missions office went out last weekend too. That’s gonna help get the ball rolling I hope. Now I just have to do a lot of follow-ups. If you haven’t received a brochure and you would like to receive one, just let me know.

Personal....Things have been a bit crazy on that front. I find that I get so wrapped up in work and GM stuff that I don’t concentrate tons on my personal life. Then, I realize that some of my relationships with friends have been effected by that. Some of the work and GM stuff I can change and then regret later on the ways that I have hurt some friends in the process of not making time for them. Other things I can’t change and that means that my friends need to be understanding. Hasn’t always been the case, but that’s okay. I still value those friends’ relationships.

In other news, I go to the doctor AGAIN today. I’m still waiting to hear back the results to my x-rays on my wrist. Last Tuesday night I was playing Church Softball when I slid into second base. I guess I must have put my left hand down incorrectly, b/c now it is soooo painful to even try to move it. I’ve gone to the doctor and radiologists and now I’m just waiting to hear back from my my doc. I don’t really care what they tell me...I just want to know what’s going on and what I can do to make it better. I guess that’s the problem with not having health insurance....you have to go to cheaper doctors and radiologists who take longer to get results to you.

Last bit...this week I’m going up to Michigan to see my aunt and uncle and to do some fundraising for GM. Not really excited about the fundraising part, but the rest of it I’m PUMPED about.