Yesterday, our WELCA president asked Jon if I could help stuff newsletters today. My answer: OF COURSE!!! Granted, I’d be the only one there under 65 years old; but these women are cool and they make a fuss over me, which is nice because I have no family close by to do it. Besides, I need to build up some good church woman karma for Jon’s first call and get something on my resumé for candidacy (since my committee doesn’t think I’m Lutheran enough). So… I set out to help them at 11 this morning and we stuffed the 500 weekly newsletters, stopping for lunch around 1. (They treated me to Wendy’s. How sweet of them!) Jon and I took them to the post office and God willing, they’ll actually reach people in time for the service at Flory Park on Sunday.

In addition to stuffing newsletters, we talked about things and one of the subjects was a verse that P couldn’t find. During a break, I snuck into Jon’s office and looked it up on The Unbound Bible. It was Psalm 30:5 which states:

For His anger is but for a moment,
His favor is for a lifetime;
Weeping may last for the night,
But a shout of joy comes in the morning. (NASB)

It’s an interesting verse, considering all that the church has been through in the last few weeks. The funerals are over and people are starting to move on. I am still overjoyed that F and G were in church on Sunday (since MANY people stop attending church after the death of a loved one). I found out that G encouraged F to attend the 10:00 service on Sunday because it was the one she attended with D for so many years. I’m thankful he did that — F needs to adjust and we as a church need to know how we can help her with the adjustment. If I hadn’t already been sitting with people last Sunday, I would have hung out with them. People have told me that she’s doing better, which is *VERY* good to hear. Aside from F and G, our older active members are also mourning and I’m really praying for something to help them. Their ranks have been really hurt by the deaths and I’m wondering how the next Faith After 55 meeting is going to be.

My week has proved to be full of much downtime. Wednesday, Jon and I got caught up on cleaning and yesterday, I chilled while Jon was at church. Oh yes… a belated “Happy Canada Day” to the Canucks on my blogroll and others who visit Meditatio regularly.

Last night was a free concert at the local branch of OSU and Jon and I decided to go. It’s a pretty campus and we brought a blanket thinking that we might need it. Well… everyone had brought lawn chairs and stuff and we hung out with our cat care people and their family. The music was some rock classics, the Land of Legend Philharmonic Orchestra doing patriotic fare, and the Scioto County Brass and Percussion. It was a lovely concert and the fireworks were pretty sweet as well. Unfortunately, I accidentally hit another car trying to get out of the parking lot. 🙁 (I was trying to get into a space that someone had opened for me and I accidentally went too far to the left and dinged someone’s door. We left a note and they called us this morning. The nice folks at our insurance company are taking care of it thankfully.)

This morning, we went to Meijer and got fruit for salad, some spinach (mmmmmmm… spinach salad), honey (for granola), and some other granola ingredients. We ran into lots of people from church there and we also ran into people at Kroger and Festival Foods. I made a batch of granola this afternoon before I realized that we were out of milk and had to make a Wal-Mart run. The Wal-Mart run turned out to be very interesting because a thunderstorm was about to hit and there were a few dust devils in front of it. Trying to turn into the Wal-Mart parking lot was really bad because of it and I think I just avoided being hit by a car because visibility was so low. We were also having to dodge runaway carts being propelled by the wind.

Continue reading →

In the midst of everything that’s been going on this week, Jon and I have been teaching Vacation Bible School at Jon’s internship parish. The theme is “Zoom Zone” and is a time travel adventure back to Bible days. I’m doing the “Praystation” and Jon is doing “ZoomTunes” (i.e. I’m teaching kids how to pray and Jon is doing music) and it’s been a good distraction from everything else in our lives. I can go and be silly and do songs and also teach kids about the importance of prayer. If I could only memorize the ones they give me to do…

Things I’ve learned:
-Fruit Loops stick to your ears if you lick them.
-Going all the way down to your knees during the Chicken Dance will alert you to muscles in your legs that you didn’t know you had.
-JESUS!!! is the answer to everything.
-Gummy LifeSavers make good rings.
-There are lots of ways that we can serve God with our hands.
-Jesus loves the little children and will tell the adults to be quiet so that the kiddies can be blessed.
-Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
-It *IS* possible to stump the pastor.
-Pastors are fun to watch when they get silly with the kids.

I’m 1/3 of the way through and nobody is dead yet.

After I finish, I might tackle this.

**Update** Just finished the book. It was a fairly fast read though the plot drags if you know that someone major is gonna die. I’m not going to be mean and reveal who it is. That would just be seriously wrong.

1. Is your hair naturally curly, wavy, or straight? Long or short?
It’s pretty much straight but starting to get wavier. It’s about a few inches past my shoulders and I’m trying to grow it longer.

2. How has your hair changed over your lifetime?
I was a towhead when I was younger and my hair has darkened to a light brown. I’ve hennaed it a few times so I also have some reddish highlights mixed in.

3. How do your normally wear your hair?
Pulled back up off my face, either in a bun or French-braid (“freedom-braid” is just lame) or a ponytail.

4. If you could change your hair this minute, what would it look like?
Longer and hennaed

5. Ever had a hair disaster? What happened?
My perm in 7th grade made my hair look like it should be on a poodle. I got called “poodle locks” for weeks by some morons in my gym class.

**UPDATE** My Internet started working again on Friday night.

The last few days have been packed. I attended the first funeral on Wednesday (of the three active members of our church who died this past weekend) and it was very uplifting. Mary (the deceased) was an amazing woman and the readings were very powerful as were the chosen hymns. Afterwards, I and others stayed to transform the fellowship hall from church to dining room for Mary’s funeral luncheon.

Just before the second funeral, Jon told me that he and Bill had to head to Columbus to be with the family of a member of the church (D) who was having major heart surgery yesterday. His surgery was scheduled for 2:30 pm and he had a serious heart attack around 12:20. Thankfully, his son and wife were in the room and they got a code called in within 15 seconds. His brain was unfortunately without oxygen for a period of time, so his survival rate was put at 20%. After conducting two funerals, Bill and Jon were exhausted and Jon volunteered me to drive.

When we got into the hospital, D was still in surgery. We sat with his wife and his son until the surgeon called us in for a conference. I wasn’t expecting to be allowed in but they asked me to stay. (Usually on hospital visits, I bring a book or some crocheting and fold myself into a chair in the lobby for however long the visit takes.) D survived the surgery — praise God! The surgeon was really awesome and explained the situation, finishing with a request for Bill to pray for all of them — a very good thing in this situation. We sat with the family and comforted them until D was moved into ICU. Again, I was allowed to go into ICU but I did so only to find out where D was so I could direct Bill there later. Afterwards, we grabbed dinner at the Wendy’s in the hospital basement and headed back home so Jon and I could do visiting hours for the person to be buried today.

The funeral today went well — at least that’s what I heard. My job was getting the drinks and stuff ready and making sure our WELCA president sat down on occasion. 🙂 I also baby-sat the kitchen with our Church Council president while the ladies were at the funeral and John (CC pres) and I did some more prep work. The luncheon went well — WAY too much food but I limited myself to only what I was hungry for at the time.

Continue reading →

My blog may be really quiet for the next few days because I’m helping with the cooking and set-up for the funerals tomorrow and Thursday. As we’re worshipping in our fellowship hall while they replace the heating/air-conditioning system in the sanctuary, I’ll be putting away chairs and setting up tables while they’re doing the burial after the first funeral (which is the only one I wanted to attend) and then I’ll be helping with the cooking for the second funeral. On Thursday, I’ll be cooking all morning for the funeral and basically watching the kitchen because most of the ladies cooking will want to attend the funeral service (for someone who I pretty much knew just by name).

It’s going to be a crazy few days but I’m glad I volunteered to help out. Two of the three were active and faithfully attending until fairly recently and a lot of people are really in pain over the deaths. It’s one of the few times that I’m thankful that I’m only here temporarily — I have less attachment to the people than I would have if I’d attended here for years. Besides… many of the WELCA ladies are old enough to be my grandmothers and they all feel horrible about me being 2500 miles from my family members, so I get spoiled rotten by them as they try to compensate. 🙂