Life Moves, Baby

Hi!

To say that the last two weeks have been busy would not even begin to convey the level of activity, the amount of stress, the roller coaster of emotion, and the sheer physical / spiritual / mental / emotional exertion we have experienced.

Here's a little synopsis:
- Our foster daughter transitioned back to her mother's house.
- Erin and I helped lead, and Cori and Wes participated in Vacation Bible School in North Kansas City.
- Erin filled in at the Day Care at First UMC, North KC for two weeks.
- Cori and Wes were in summer school every day.- I had an all day meeting of the Board of Managers' of Missouri Ministers' School in Columbia Tuesday before last.
- We packed.
- We had our last weekend at the church in Northtown, with all of the love and "good-byes" that entailed.
- We watched three guys load all our stuff onto a big orange truck.
- We drove to Springfield, Missouri.
- We spent the night with some great friends.
- Two of the three guys met us at our new house and proceeded to unload all the stuff they had previously loaded.
- We began opening boxes, unpacking stuff, arranging furniture, opening more boxes, looking for the pots and pans, and so forth.
- Cori articulated our feeling that "Stuff is evil."
- A wonderful woman, a member of Campbell, died on Tuesday and I'll have the privilege of leading her memorial service along with the Visitation Pastor, Rev. Joe Lightner this Saturday.
- I started getting my church office all set up and the first thing I did was steal the office furniture of the Associate Pastor, Rev. Melissa Dodd. (Not really, she actually very graciously offered it to me!)
- We began meeting some wonderful, friendly, warm and welcoming people who go to Campbell UMC, where I start as the pastor this coming Sunday morning.

Whew - I'm tired just writing about it! Although there's more that has been happening, that pretty much hits the highlights. We've managed to have some fun, too. We went to the neighborhood swimming pool; we chased fireflies; Dad came down to help and we had a good visit. And the staff here at Campbell is so wonderful and helpful and just generally cool people to be around.

So, when I "officially" begin here as the pastor next week, and things begin to get into a groove again, I'll be back blogging with more regularity. I've got a lot on my mind, building up over this little "moving" hiatus. Who knows what may come spewing forth when I finally sit down next week to do a real post?