Wed., Aug. 29

The rest of the world may be coming toward the end of summer. We are NOT. Today the children and I tackled weeds. It was 109.

I died.

Need I elaborate?

But today's kicker was that I had a phone call to make before we got started weeding. I told the children to water down the weeds on the strip between the street and the sidewalk. The phone call took longer than I expected. (Trico, our electricity provider, is trying to wring another $100 out of us this month -- as if the $530 we've given them so far isn't enough; the tremendous power bill is due to a few things. a.) We didn't get June's bill and thought, since we didn't live here during June that we wouldn't have to pay it; b.) The electricity died twice during July; c.) July is the hottest month of the year; d.) we are adjusting power usage in this new house; etc.) During the phone call I heard the children having fun in the garage, but thought little of it. It turns out that somehow my instruction to "water down the weeds" was interpreted by their brains as "flood the garage".

This is one of the FEW days I was actually thankful for 109 dry degrees. It was a lot of work to pull out of the garage everything that was soaked, but within just three hours everything was dry!!!!! Phew. That could have been much worse. I'll spare you details on the children's consequences for that decision. I did see the most remorseful Justus I've ever seen, though. Still sad from the events, Justus quietly communicated to me, "Mama, I'm more sorry than I have ever been." Mmm.... I know what it feels like to be that sorry; my heart hurt for his.... Natasha was responsible to tell me (after the fact) that it was she who came up with the idea, which, of course, I knew; Justus's mind, so far, doesn't think so quickly or often of ways to disobey.

For two hours this afternoon (once the garage was well on its way toward drying) we rotated between spending 15 minutes weeding and 15 minutes inside reading/drinking water under the fan. So actually "we" weeded for only one hour. (The children rode bikes more than weeded, which was GREAT! It's been a while since they were on their bikes.) The only really bad moment in the heat was the last two minutes - when I'd not kept close enough track of my sweat and it started running into my eyes, which burned, and I didn't have a good way to get the sweat out of my eyes (dirty gardening gloves, sweat-soaked shirt...); let's just say I was glad today's weeding was done.

Many more hours of weeding will be required but I'm happy to say the front is basically done. Now just the sides and the back. Ugggggh. I'm so glad we're heading toward cooler weather, and I will continue to try to make EVENING time for this weeding.... It's just ... our next five days are REALLY FULL so I don't think I'll even have time to work on it at all until next week. Grrrr.

We had a moment of frustration in the church meeting this evening. Although our 'core group' is growing (those who are attending more services more regularly), praise God!!, the actual spiritual growth is slow. We are now in need of teachers for fall quarter ... which starts Sunday. It has been in the bulletin and being announced for three weeks but there are only two teachers out of the four we need. So it's looking like the leadership has some decisions to make during the meeting on Saturday.... Keep up the Bible classes? Take a quarter off? Combine them into one? Innnnnnnteresting.... It's not that people aren't willing to teach; it's that the leadership has decided that no teacher should teach more than one quarter in a row unless he/she wants to. And then there are some who WANT to teach but whose elderly bodies wont allow it [especially Oneta, Fern, and Shirley, who have all expressed a physical problem that keeps them from teaching. :( ]. So anyway.... We shall see.

Actually, at this moment I would like to request your fervent prayers regarding the Men's Meeting on Saturday. It is looking like there will be about four 'hot topics' that need to be covered. One is that there is a woman who is willing to be treasurer; is that okay with the leadership -- that she's a woman? Another is that Jeremy doesn't give a long, drawn-out 'invitation' after every lesson; it was brought out while we were gone that some people have a problem with that. A third topic is going to be Jeremy's request for some actually 'scheduled' hours of secretarial support from me. He is drowning under office chores which need to be taken care of by someone else. As it is I do an average of five hours of 'church secretary' work per week, but in order for things to really 'flow' another ten hours of assistance are needed. It would be nice if they would approve to pay me to do "up to 15 hours" of secretarial work at the building per week. (Jeremy and I have worked out a plan that would be great.) However, we are thinking it is highly UNlikely such a thing would be approved :( and Jeremy has asked if I would be willing to do that work on a volunteer basis even if they don't approve to pay me, to which I happily said yes, of course. The work is 'up my alley' and would actually allow our family to be together quite a lot more! Plus, he and I would both exult in the things being done that really need to be getting done. Those are three things. In this moment I can't remember the fourth.... Anyway, please let your prayers include our leadership this weekend. Jeremy and I feel that much of the next year's progress for the congregation depends upon things that are decided during this meeting. September's meeting as well as meeting/s in October, during which there is talk of actually creating the first ever "budget" for the congregation! Wow. Truly, progress is being made; it's just really frustrating at times. Your prayers are coveted.

And ... house pictures are on hold for a while. I'm going to be too busy, until well into next week, to spend more time on them, so ... stay tuned. :)