It's snowing again. They predicted 1-4 inches total. At 3 am this morning there was no snow (guess who was up?); now there's more than 4 inches outside. I think someone underestimated this storm. I'm quickly learning just when you need to plow the driveway, and when to leave it ... there will be no plowing today. Our vehicles can make it through quite a few inches of snow, so I'm not going out in the cold!
When you look at the picture of our home above, you would think we were living in the wilderness: It's actually just some clever framing on my part :) We do have neighbors, but every home is built on at least 2 acres of land, so no one is on top of each other. I finished the last touches on the rock fireplace, and I need to figure out is why it doesn't draw the smoke. We've been smoked-out both times we've used it... and yes, I did open the flue. I've run a chimney brush has high up as I can reach, but there's not much accumulation of soot. If anyone has an idea, let me know. The tops of the chimneys have caps and grills that are riveted into place, so it is impossible to run a chimney brush down from the top.
Last night Daphne and I enjoyed a long, laughter-filled evening with Mike our pastor and his wife Amy. We had dinner at a local Middle-Eastern cuisine restaurant called the "Damascus Grill" and it was actually pretty good. I'm extremely partial to good Jordanian or Lebanese cooking, so I'm sure we'll be back to visit in the future. We spent most of the evening laughing about the strange/funny things that happen to you when you're in full-time ministry... and after all these years we had plenty of examples. Mike has asked us to coordinate the small group ministry of the church, and he's going to announce it this coming Sunday. Daphne and I are excited to be more intimately involved in others' lives again. We've tried to wait patiently for the Lord to show us when it is time to step out of this time of waiting and listening into any kind of ministry leadership. We have not sought any roles in the church, and Mike asked us several times before we finally accepted. I'm not sure why we accepted this last time; I guess we just sense the Lord giving us the green light. I will say that we're approaching any kind of "ministry" activity with many more personal boundaries and limitations that we have in the past. Mike promised that he has no intention of "burning us out", and my reply to him was "And we have no intention of letting ourselves get to that place again." The church is about to open the diner called "The Angry Llama"; don't ask me where Mike came up with the name, as I have no idea. In the same building we'll have a coffee bar with a big screen TV for watching sports etc, pool tables etc to draw in the high-school kids, several offices, a small gym... and I don't even know what else. This is a faith-venture from beginning to end, as we don't even have the money to cover the rent each month. If it works, it will be of the Lord (and lots of sweat and tears from the church team).
In our last email newsletter we asked our friends and supporters to help us with our marketing strategy for Storm Guides, and we've already had one very encouraging contact with a missions agency based in Georgia. This is how I expect things to develop - by word of mouth more than other marketing strategies. We're hoping to finish a brochure very soon. All the ground-work of setting up a new company, getting registered, maintaining the website etc still feels very daunting, and I can already see that I'll need to bring someone on to help me administratively in the not-too-distant future. I simply cannot handle all the details on my own. Hopefully we'll begin to have income through Storm Guides and we can hire someone part-time.
My brother John and I have been talking about the issue of listening to God lately. This is particularly interesting when you think about Peter, James and John. They hung around Jesus more than the others (I sometimes wonder how the others felt about that), so they had more opportunity to hear Him. But they weren't always listening. When Jesus took them up on the Mount of Transfiguration, Peter started babbling as usual about how they should make that place a permanent retreat center, with a gymnasium, and cafeteria, and statues of Jesus, Elijah and Moses... and then God interrupted him and said, "This is my Son. LISTEN TO HIM!" It seems pretty clear from the context that God was telling Peter, and the others, to shut up and pay more attention to Jesus. It seems like John, at least, started to understand because a little while later He told Jesus how he'd rebuked a man for casting out demons because he wasn't "one of the team". I always read this as though John were proud of what he'd said, but my brother John pointed out that - in all likelihood - John actually felt bad about it, and was making a confession. If so, then he had started listening more to Jesus' heart, and arguing less about who was the greatest. I really want to learn to listen more attentively, more actively and more often.
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