well, we're on vacation ... and i feel disconnected. i guess in a way that's the whole POINT of going on vacation - TO disconnect. to disengage from the stuff of everyday life and relax ... refresh yourself, as it were.

what makes it odd is that, i don't really WANT to disconnect. i don't WANT to disengage from the lives that i'm involved with back home. i wonder how Cindy is doing, how William is spending his first christmas without Margaret in ... probably over 60 years, how Jack is feeling, how Jose did in his therapy yesterday and this morning, how Karen is doing - still fairly stunned at the gifts she brought over on Friday afternoon ... STILL AMAZED at the generosity of the folks at Jerusalem ...

of course, a part of me is perking the message for sunday ...

we had a wonderful sunday - went to thalia lynn, saw a lot of people we'd not seen in a long time, though not everyone - it snowed here, something fairly unusual in virginia beach - we still have an inch or two on the ground, though thankfully the roads have mostly been cleared. Hannah's 1st grade teacher came by to visit this afternoon - Louise Powell has the gift of encouragement. she is such a sweet spirit. Leslie went to breakfast with Julie, her best friend, and has left a phone tag message for donna, hopefully we'll be able to hook up later in the week.

all in all, i suppose i'll be settling into vacationing more and more as the week progresses, in time to get back into the swing of things when we get back to emmerton sometime saturday.

i'm still trying to wrap my brain around the horrible events in indonesia, malaysia, sri lanka, thailand (i had nightmares about that happening as a boy in antofagasta), and ... somalia???

O God, give us hearts and hands to reach out and lift up, and help, and provide comfort and sustenance to our brothers and sisters across the world.

so it's been ... a week and a day ...

http://www.fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/2004/122004/12202004/1605450

but it WAS certainly memorable.

feliz navidad, y feliz año

merry christmas, y'all! (yeah, i know it's a little early, but with the way things have been ramping up here, i may not get a chance to post anything else before then ... WILL try to, though.)

grace & peace,
in the season of
grace
and
peace

full day ... full week ...

monday took jose into richmond for his therapy ... tuesday drove down to irvington to pick up a massive amount of food donations (relative to the size of the congregation ... 18 people) ...

then came back and drove up to fredericksburg to visit with bob and katherine self . bob has just been diagnosed with inoperable cancer ... in the lymph nodes ... there is ONE treatment option available to him ... a type of chemo ... he turned 90 this past spring ... i'll be getting up to fredericksburg a lot over the next several weeks ... it is a fast-moving cancer.

tuesday evening i got word that edna mckendrie, the mother of one of our young couple's wives, was found dead at her home ... visitation was this evening ... i've been asked to do the funeral tomorrow ... and valentin farfan, a mexican friend, is spending the night with us tonight so i can drive him into richmond in the morning so he can get on a bus to go home to tend to some legal business there and then come back and keep working ...

such is the life of a rural pastor ...

mom and dad and lolly and jacques and elizabeth rose and aaron are here ... we had 22 people altogether for thanksgiving dinner today ... it was awesome ...

gathering coming up on sunday ... here at jerusalem ...

grace & peace

it's been a while.

my first instinct is to apologize ... but i would then quickly ask ... who would i be apologizing to? :-)

let's see ... when was the last post ... oh ... almost a month ago.

since then, i've been running to ... well ... just running, it seems. all good and necessary stuff ... but running as if i had the energy of a teenager ... which i don't.

i said goodbye to uncle john parker the same week that i was called in to be with a woman who lost her baby 8 months into her pregnancy ... last week i went in to be with a couple of burn victims, arrived at the hospital to find that one of them had been medevacked (sp?) directly to MCV ... and found out the next day that he didn't make it.

got an email yesterday asking for some paperwork that is long overdue ...

got asked if i'd be willing to check into taking a public speaking course again ... by someone who has a lot of trouble hearing but won't consider hearing aids ...

and i'm having to think about going back to school in the spring???

so now it IS time to apologize ... for whining ... but i'm going to leave this here for now ... and probably delete it later.

i have a sermon to write.

this doesn't convey the energy, but it was an awesome evening in worship as well. this was right before the service started.  

this evening at coan church we celebrated another encuentro. we had 62 hispanic friends there. that is the largest number yet at a gathering - outside of Posadas last december. this picture was taken before the last big group got there.  

Leslie, sporting her new glasses, last night about 11:30 or so. she's getting ready to preach at Irvington church on the 31st. She did an incredible job in Bible Study this evening - she's doing the acacia resources study on the book of mark -- discipleship. she was ON, man, REALLY ON.

During the party this evening, a total of 19 guys from White Stone, including most of the 8 who just got in, joined us to celebrate Hannah's party. the party was mostly going on downstairs in the basement, and they came in and Mundo was the last one in -- carrying THIS. We were stunned. They all pitched in together, or most of them, anyway, but just the thought that they DID that ... and some of them STILL brought other smaller gifts in bags for Hannah ... it was another one of those times when we were not so much surprised as we were overwhelmed.

We are REALLY looking forward to seeing them in their own homes in January when we go to visit.

Grace & Peace

Sitting on the edge of the float for the High Flyers, waiting for the parade to begin, behind the old Ames store (that closed a couple of years ago), with fields in the background (I LOVE it that you don't have to walk far to find a field or a woods here on the Neck!). The float won first place in the Youth Award category. Not sure exactly what that means, but it's cool either way.

Hannah is 9 years old today. this picture is from back on the 4th of July. I'll try to get an updated shot in here this evening or later this afternoon. She's having a 60's themed birthday party, with 9 of her girlfriends and 1 little boy. In addition, there are maybe close to 20 hispanic friends coming to celebrate as well. 8 of them just got in wednesday evening, some we've not seen yet, so it's going to be a welcoming party as well as a birthday party.

left home thursday morning about 4:30, got back around ... 2 i guess, then drove down to kilmarnock to take a couple of guys to the free health clinic for follow up dr's visits, then home. yesterday i left at 5:30 to drive to norfolk for an all-day training seminar on a counseling package hosted at one of the bigger churches in town. interesting feeling being in a church that felt something like an office building, what with riding an elevator to the 3rd floor and all ...

interesting mix of folks in the seminar ... felt like they were all a good bit more conservative than i am. kept a low profile ... as usual... more or less. :-)

grace & peace

yes i know it's been WAAAAY too long since i posted something words-wise. (not that i'm saying my words are wise ...) anyway ... here's what's going on. i've been to Richmond 6 times in the last ... 2 weeks ... i suppose. it's not that far, really -- just over an hour, and there's usually not a whole lot of traffic to contend with. sometimes the being there is draining. sometimes the going and coming back. please understand, this is not complaining, it's just a recitation of what is involved in ministry in a rural area, specifically in regards to medical care and visiting folks in the hospital, and issues that arise in working with hispanics.

Edith doesn't have a job, but she has to have her gall bladder removed. MCV is asking for a deposit of 1,000 - $500 each to the surgeon and for the procedure, to be followed by a payment plan for the balance.

she has NO income. she doesn't qualify for financial aid because she's not a resident alien or a US citizen. we drove over, sat for ... 4 hours to be seen by a (kind, friendly) doctor for all of 15 minutes, then waited another half hour to be told about the deposit requirement.

i UNDERSTAND there are costs involved. i really truly DO understand that. but it seems that unless her gall bladder ruptures and threatens her life (if that even happens) they're not going to operate.

Jose injured his arm in a work accident, and needs to go to occupational therapy 2 or 3 times a week (this week twice, next week 3 times). he spends an hour and a half to two hours in therapy or meeting with the doctor at a time. it's roughly a two hour trip each direction, counting leaving, picking him up and dropping him off and getting back home. so that's 5 or 6 hours out of the day that i am away from the local congregation.

yeah, they are both my 'local' congregations, the anglo and hispanic folks.

i've been able to overlap and visit some folks who are in the hospital, so that's been good, but i've felt myself start to drag.

on the myers-briggs, i'm an INFP. the I means i get my energy from solitude. Jose is either shy, an introvert, or still doesn't know what to make of me, since we only met a couple of days ago. we talk some on the drives back and forth, but haven't delved into any serious discussions yet. part of me is okay with that, but another part of me is thinking i could be using that time to ... break the ice more. talk about faith issues, stuff like that.

it's funny how expectations -- my own self-imposed expectations can be the most ... draining ...

i spend a good part of my time helping people by getting them to somewhere or bringing them FROM somewhere. good thing i enjoy driving ... i'm really wishing for a 15 passenger van capacity, with a hybrid engine consumption factor. do they make those yet??

so where is God in all of this????

I keep finding him in new places.

in the joking, in the quiet comments, in the building of the bonds of trust that make them comfortable with me and with Leslie. i ESPECIALLY see it when three of the guys from white stone drive up here to the used auto parts place just up the road from us, and 'just drop by' to say hi and visit with Leslie and the kids (i was ... surprise surprise... on my way back from Richmond), and then ended up eating supper with us. Caleb and Judson absolutely clobbered Jose ... they got to playing and wrestling with him, and hanging on his legs and arms and stuff ... at some point they settled down enough for Caleb to teach him how to play 'Go Fish'... but to have them feel at ease enough with us to drop by unnannounced ... it made them feel more and more like family to us ... and hopefully, us to them.

grace ....

and Peace.

Jay Garner, front, right, was ordained to the deacon ministry this morning. his grandmother, Frances Lewis, is next to him, his mother (Beulah) is behind him, his girlfriend (Anne) is on the other side of his grandmother, his aunt (Kitty) is behind her, his brother (Tom) is beside her, with HIS wife (Brenda), and his uncle (Frankie) is next to his mother. it was a pretty cool service to be a part of. first time ... again ... i really love these people!

Lea, Karen, and Doug Coppage came to visit, and share about the last two years they spent in Hungary working with the deaf. Awesome time. They visited us a couple of weeks before they left FOR there, so it was really cool to have them visit so soon after their return FROM there.  

as of ... this morning: 11:45 ... and it turns out Zulu IS greenwich mean time ... so that would have been ... 6:45 AM, EST ...

as of ... 2015 zulu time ... that doesn't mean greenwich time, does it? please God, help us help each other.

... that started from this tropic port, aboard this tidy ship ... the mate was a mighty sailor man ... yeah, RIGHT!!! 

the view from ... ahem ... the stern ... :-) Soozin took Leslie and me fishing on the river yesterday morning. what an incredible gift ... to be able to relax like that!  

this morning - hannah & caleb's second day, judson's first for kindergarten. he was soooo excited! .... but then pretty much glued to Leslie's and then my legs as we got ready to say goodbye. :-) (Leslie is holding his nap mat)

the afternoon winding down ... cold and wet, but still fun ...  

a tale of a fateful trip ...

volleyball ...  

food aplenty ... a "bounteous feast" 

just sit right back and you'll hear a tale ... 

Keith was tossing Hannah ... I could never get the timing right on the shutter ... might've been something about the light ... who knows? Brandon Stevens in the foreground.  

today went well, i think. the message came fairly quickly, though still late ... but i DID get a little more sleep than i usually get on saturday nights. this afternoon we joined some of the youth of the church as well as some of the adults from a couple of the classes for a picnic at Carolyn's beach (pictures to follow). it was pretty heavily overcast, and sprinkled off and on (fortunately for us, mostly off) all afternoon, but it was still warm enough for the most part to go swimming in the river, and go tubing behind cliff and soozin's boat. LOTS of fun. just a relaxed afternoon before getting into the swing of things for school on tuesday.

message is posted on 'emmerton messages' to the right ... if you're interested.

grace & peace

Judson, our youngest, is 5 today!!!  

Marjorie Gaines and her friend Charlotte came by a short while ago with the school supplies they'd collected at Claybrook Church, one of the smaller churches in the association. 8 BACKPACKS AND SUPPLIES!!! that put us back over 50 backpacks available for distribution. Cecilia came by last night and i went with her to deliver 3 backpacks and meet a couple of families.  

L-R: Vanessa, Neli, Ruby, and Samantha

Sanjuana Cantú (back to the camera in the light blue T-shirt) and some of her extended family, decisions, decisions.  

Sanjuana and some of the kids.