I Don't Want to Say I'm Baaack

When reading a blog, I hate it when the first paragraph is an “I’m sorry for having other life activities that I’ve needed to get to, so I haven’t posted in a while, but I’m back in the saddle ready to blog away.” message. Yea, who could ever imagine having other things to do? Since I dislike those kinds of messages so much, I won’t post one. So, let me just say: Updating the blog should be more a part of my schedule now (apologies around to you whom understood that as one of those messages).

The kids are getting back to school. I suppose that means I’m getting ready as well. Yes, check your calendar again; we are already eight months into 2009. Since I haven’t shared a whole lot this summer, I figured I would get you up to speed. Here is a look at our summer (slide machine appreciated):

A Seminary First (for me) I took a three week summer course. There were pros/cons, obviously. There were only three weeks to go over a lot of material, but hey, it was only three weeks. Final result: Well, it was a class covering Post-Modernism. While I didn’t come away a full pledged PMer, I did appreciate the challenging aspects of our studies. Sure the amount of work (reading, etc) in seminary had its overwhelming moments, but honestly I had been disappointed with the experience up to this point. Perhaps my expectations were too high for this first year. This class changed that. So far I can say I haven’t gone a year in seminary without being challenged.

Oh, I got an “A” in the class! My first in seminary (commence Macarena).

Phone Home
Our family traveled to Galveston for the first time since Hurricane Ike. Things looked different. I was a little bummed at first. But I got over it when I realized how much work was being done, and how far the city had already come. We attended a baby shower for one of my sisters, and a few weeks later here comes little Angelina in a baby carriage.

We stopped in Bandera and Pearsall as well to see friends, family and friends-as-close-as family. We even go to attend worship service at BUMC. Good trip.

Acolyte Sunday No one at church could remember ever recognizing our acolytes. I can’t have that. So, we held a small recognition time during church one morning. We thanked four youth who have served for a while now, and prayed the work they do now would prepare them and encourage them in their future work in the church. We also introduced a rookie. Little Ms. Ashlei.




Crocodile Dock Oak Haven had its first Vacation Bible School in a few years. My goal was a hundred children. We did reach that goal—not even close. It wasn’t because we didn’t do our part. We went walking with flyers and other advertising; it just didn’t happen that way. However, the 21 children who went had a good time, came back and learned about God’s love. The group from Trietsch Memorial was great. They were well organized and did a fabulous job with the children. I am looking forward to working with them again.



Did I Do That? Maybe part of our not reaching the goal of 100 children at VBS was the weather. We had rainy, stormy weather from Monday to Saturday. It was early Thursday morning I thought I heard something strange. When I looked outside this is what I saw:



It’s been taken care of and there was no major damage. Can you tell? There is a second car under that tree! Poor, poor Kia. It could have been so much worse.


5 Practices The five weeks we spent were not enough. After members of our church took time to learn about the five practices and generate some ideas they wanted to make sure others in the church had the same opportunity. So, we had a Sunday breakfast, all our Sunday school classes met as one group and got more people involved. It was great.

Ho-Ho-Hot! Our United Methodist Women’s group hosts a Christmas in July for the nursing home in our community. We were able to be a part of that. It was a wonderful experience. Smiles throughout. Well, maybe Santa wasn’t smiling too much under that beard; it was 100 degrees out. We even had live music. I would like our church to do more for the residents there—maybe more visitation or worship services. We’ll see.


3 simple rules This week we began our study on the Three Simple Rules of John Wesley. It has only started and I don’t have pictures, yet, but I think we all enjoyed our time together. I’m looking forward to the next three weeks.

There you have it. Summer isn’t officially over, but we’re winding down. We don’t have any trips planned (maybe family issues). We’re waiting for our members to get back home and together. If things and people go the way I’m thinking, there may be a few extra pews pulled out of storage in a couple of weeks.

Let me know you’re alive. Leave a comment. Most of all, stay blessed…john