It’s been over a month…
since I last posted. Not that there hasn’t been anything to post about, a lot of it is either lack of time or energy to post about all that’s been going on.
Since becoming a candidate for ministry, I’ve started officially as student supply for the Sambro-Jollimore pastoral charge. It’s a lovely two-point charge on the outskirts of the city. St. James in Sambro sits right on the ocean. The window in my office is probably 100 feet from the water. Yet I’m still productive when I’m in there! 🙂
I had my first funeral yesterday morning, and by all accounts, it went very well from a presiding point of view. I suspect I’ll have one or two more in the next couple of months as the health of some members of the community continue to decline.
It looks like I’ll be there until the start of July, which will be perfect because at that point we’ll be looking to do some heavy packing before internship starting in September! Things are going so well and moving so fast right now, however I remain cautiously optimistic. It was a very long 4 years getting to this point, and want to be careful going forward as not to take any big steps back in the process.
The band! The band has become more than any of us have imagined. The response to us has been amazing. It’s not our abilities, we’re average at best, but we bring passion and energy for praising God wherever we go. Both of which people seem to be really responding to! We continue to pray for this ministry we offer, it clearly is a calling that none of us expected to find, and God continues to carry us on this awesome journey.
I created us a website (http://astsu.ca/twocents) and we’re getting offers to play in various venues. Like last Friday night we played a worship event for a youth group in Dartmouth. We played for an hour with some prayers and readings intermixed. It was an amazing evening, and we sounded good! It was our first time with mics, and we found it sooo helpful. We’ve been invited to a worship coffee house next month, but aren’t sure yet if we’ll get a quorum of the band to be able to go. Our keyboard player has already indicated she can’t make it, and it’s the last weekend of classes too, for the rest of the band who are in school this term! (not me, wheee!)
The kids are great, Anthony hasn’t slept much better yet, but we’re still hopeful that soon things will turn around. If we are able to predict his bedtimes we find we can get a better night’s sleep. But we shall see how it continues.
In a nutshell, that has been my month. Other than many sleep deprived nights, it’s been a good month. There’s no doubt that I’ve been supported with energy from God, because there are somedays where keeping the eyes open is a huge challenge! Thanks be to God!
Well, it finally happened!
It seems I’ve finally been able to convince the church that I am worthy!
As of last night’s Ottawa Presbytery meeting I am now officially a candidate for ministry in the United Church of Canada!!
Thanks to everyone who has been praying about this, the support has been overwhelming at times. It’s awesome to know that even as I struggled God spoke to me through your support.
I should be happier than I am, but I’m also worn out. On top of interviews and candidate related ‘stuff’ we’ve been in final negotiations for a big website project. Lots of number crunching and back and forth about how we see things costing vs what they see. That’s government for ya!
Oh well, it’s still all good. And now with that also done, it tops off a great start to the week! All that’s really left is to get a sermon together for Sunday!
So begins another term
Oh but wait! I’m not taking any courses until after internship! HAHAHAHHAHAHAHA!
WOOOOOOO!!!
Ok, so now all my friends at AST hate me… but it’s worth it knowing that I have some time without having to do work of an academic nature. I know I’ll be plenty busy, and living on campus I’ll still take part in a couple of school activities, but noooo homework!
WOOOOOOO!!!
So this is 2007…
Bev and I, as we were drifting off to sleep around 11 last night (9 months of sleep deprivation, that’s about as late as we could make it) were talking about how after a bumpy 2006 that 2007 might be a better year.
Off to a rocking start. At the stroke of midnight, with the noise of the fireworks echoing outside, our 2 year old started to cry. I go in, thinking it might just be the noise, but no… she puked over her bed. The next 45 minutes are cleaning her up and changing her bed then getting her back down to sleep.
Our 9 month old seems to have regressed back to a 2 hour feeding schedule overnight this past week so there’s that regular interruption. Also at 5am the heat kicks in and the rattling pipes wake our daughter and again I go in. Not 10 minutes later she pukes again. This time I was prepared with bucket.
I decide that I will stay with her the rest of the morning and get maybe 15 minutes sleep, while she wakes at 6:30 telling lots of stories. Thankfully around 7 she’s back to sleep until just after 8. This time period is when I finally get my 15 minutes of sleep.
So… 2007 can only get better in my opinion. Heck, whenever we start sleeping more than 2 hours straight has the potential to make it the greatest year ever from where we stand right now.
2006 was indeed a bumpy year. There was lots going on that I did not blog about, and I’ll only touch on a couple of things here. Certainly things like the birth of our son will make it more memorable as time passes. But there are also the events of loss that will be remembered. The loss of both Ruby and Zorro only months apart and the death of my grandfather in between were significant this year.
2006 will also be remembered because I had some great preaching opportunities this summer in United, Baptist and Presbyterian churches, it was a really fun summer in that regard, and we also were able to spend time with Bev’s family, which we hadn’t really had opportunity in a long time.
So what’s next? Well, I’ve been holding off on this news as I wasn’t sure if it would happen due to some glitches. But right now it looks like a go. I will be a sort of student supply for the Sambro-Jollimore pastoral charge for the next while. Due to the above mentioned glitches I am still unsure of the details, other than right now I am leading worship and providing pastoral care in some sort of part-time assignment while we wait for the regular minister to return. There is no timeline for her return at this point, so I have been asked to take a turn at filling in the gap.
I also have some interviews with the church coming up. If all goes well I should see an internship in the fall. Finally! It’s been a long journey, but I trust that it will all work out in the end.
2006 was a loooong year, but in that long year we’ve made some discoveries. If we continue to build on what we’ve found, I think that this year, and the ones to come, will be very fruitful and blessed. Thanks be to God!
Oh, on a side note. It may be noticed that I’ve turned off comments to all but registered users. I had to. The 3000 spam comments I’ve deleted in the last month and a half were too much. If you want to comment, feel free to register, I may try turning it on again sometime later this month.
Merry Christmas!
Wishing all out there in internet land a very merry Christmas and a blessed 2007.
More news to come, it’s been a busy month…