Thursday, July 29, 2010

Very Satisfying Day

The weather is beautiful, upper 80's, low 90's. I've been able to cut back on landscaping. Kristen is over her toe infection. Mark comes home from Turkey in a week. This afternoon I'm going to organize the bathroom cabinets.

The last two days at work I've been able to organize the file cabinets, do payroll, and program! I never thought I would miss it. As I dug in, I found myself in that 'zone' again. Working on big, long, hairy formulas. Looking up function names online, in help, and in an Excel book (the book was no help at all). Focused, talking to myself, raising my hands up in the air and saying "Yes!" when I fixed a problem. It took me back to my days at Gallo, and the time flew by. What my boss was expecting me to work on sporadically over the course of the rest of this year, I have almost done. I think. We'll see what he says when he sees my graphs when he gets back. Tomorrow I get to make everything look pretty, since the data is there and the graphs are working. Exciting!

Worship practice is here tonight, so I'll be getting the words into the laptop for Sunday. Speaking of church, we are celebrating our one year anniversary of starting weekly Sunday services. It's August 8th at 9:00 a.m. if you would like to join us. BBQ to follow. Go to our website here. I've been making a little gift for everyone. They turned out great! I can't believe I did it. I bet everyone who knows me won't be able to believe I did it either!

We're also planning a community-wide evangelistic seminar where people can learn how to share their faith. It will be held at Family Bible Center, 5 East Main Street Turlock, CA on September 11th from 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 noon. Evangelism resources will be available for browsing and buying. This will be the first of a 3-part series on evangelism.

Blessings on this beautiful Thursday.

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

The Days of Middle-Age Have Come



















I dare glance at the bookcase, I fear
My old friends, many more to be read, I tear.

Days gone by, enthralled, empassioned, I read
A heap of work, a mountain to climb, I dread.

The days of middle-age, have come
The brain forgetful, coming more quickly, for some.

The desire still remains, to read, to write
The days sift through my fingers, and too, the night.

Monday, July 19, 2010

God's Perfect Timing

Yesterday at church sure had it's moments! It was one of those days when you think the enemy is up to no good and working overtime. It was a test of my attitude and patience. I give myself a B-. We got a couple of calls the night we came back from Monterey that our refreshment person and our Sunday school teacher (married to each other) got very sunburned the day before while rafting and wouldn't be going to church. I had to pick up the refreshments and do set up the next day. Not a big deal, everything was ready to go.

Our worship leader got a call 15 minutes before he came to church that his guitar player wouldn't be coming to church.

Our AV person was camping for the weekend so I was asked to set up the projector to the computer and run the words for worship. I didn't think it would be too hard since I had set up that kind of projector many times at Gallo for presentations in PowerPoint. However, running our worship software proved a little different. For the whole hour before service, I worked on it. I had an image for a while, but not the right size. My monitor on the laptop was doing strange things. Then I lost the signal all together. A quick call to our AV guy proved futile as he was out of range. On my own. Greg and our worship leader were great trying to help. Greg got the kids to set up the refreshment table and called us to prayer about the AV equipment.

I got a call while working on the projector that our greeter, who was also scheduled to work in the nursery, had an eye infection and wouldn't be coming to church. I was also to fill in doing the greeting as well, as well as my normal duties. Fortunately, the babies and toddlers we were expecting didn't come either.

At about 3 minutes to 9:00 I finally got the projector and computer working together and the words were just like they were supposed to be. I quickly handed the bulletins out and sat at the laptop to start worship. The first song wasn't going well on the screen so Greg gave me a quick tutorial he learned from our AV guy. Then the rest of the songs went smoothly.

Mid service I was asked to get a watermelon and knife out of the fridge for an illustration Greg was doing. While I was in the kitchen, the new baby arrived with mom. She was 4 lbs 6 oz, so tiny! They came into the service, Greg stopped the service and prayed for them and they stayed for the rest of the service. Fortunately, the person who translates for her was at church yesterday.

What a crazy Sunday service! I'm thankful God pulled everything together and that the kids came early and helped with the refreshments and other setup responsibililties.

Sunday, July 18, 2010

A Day Away

Yesterday Greg, Kristen, and I went to Monterey for the day. You gotta love traveling from 100 degree weather to high 60 degree weather. It was great. We did the typical touristy things: Fisherman's Wharf, the beach at Asilomar, Cannery Row. We had lunch at the Grotto at the wharf and dinner at Pea Soup Andersen's on the way home. We ate too much and still had leftovers. Here are some pics: