Sun., Sep. 23

As promised, a picture of Natasha swinging on the tire swing at Camp Christian Echoes when we were there on Labor Day. The man in the picture is the closest thing CCE has to a caretaker. His name is Brian; he's a member of Palo Verde. It looks like Justus was waiting his turn, but he didn't swing on the tire swing. He said, "Maybe next time." It's strangely high in the air; a kid can't get on it himself. It was mightily more adventurous than Justus felt that day, I guess.

Okay, so I mentioned how today was going to be another day of crazy church-schedule stuff? Southside ("the black church" in town) is hosting a Gospel Meeting all this week; the speaker each night is the preacher from a different congregation in town. Nice!! So today at the kick-off service each speaker was asked to be present to use 2-3 minutes of time at the microphone to explain who he is (his family, where he preaches, his history/education/etc.) and what he's speaking about. If we didn't have Grandma living here with us Jeremy would have had to go alone because it was at 2:30, SMACK DAB in the middle of Sunday afternoon naps, the most important naps of the whole week!! However, I got to go with him, which was lovely. Additionally, I was the only preacher's wife present except for Southside's preacher's wife. Eddie Taylor is Southside's preacher and we had not met him until this week. His wife was pleasant to speak to for two minutes as well. Then, after the 2-3 minute introduction-thingies, they had their choral group perform, oh, 5-6 songs!! It was awesome.

But we are ssssssssssssssso tired today. Bone-aching tired. My migraine returned this afternoon so I had to pop two more Excedrins - gr. Thank that caffeine for the fact that there is a blog for today, at all.

I have four funnies from today.

First, two vocabulary glitches. During the "Table Talk" this morning before communion, one of the things we were encouraged to remember was Jesus's 'crucifixation'.

Then, a highly-educated member used the following word during a prayer this evening: 'attentative'. Huuuh?? lol!

Jeremy's lesson today was titled, "Being Like My Rabbi". Justus whispered to me, "I want to be like my rabbi!" I automatically nodded, but then thought to ask him, "Who is your rabbi?" He answered, "God." I thought for a minute, and said, "Well, your 'rabbi'...?" He said, "Dad?"

[When I told Jeremy that story he was flattered, at first, and then sobered ... because at this point in Justus's life, it's probably actually fair to say that Jeremy is the closest thing Justus has to a 'rabbi'....]

So, you know how Jeremy sometimes likes to use some shock value to prove a point.... So at one spot during this morning's lesson about evangelism he talking about being real about our own sin and continuing to recognize that us Christians truly were saved from the same sins we want to help others become free of. He said, "What would we think about, for example, introducing ourselves like this, 'Hi, I'm Jeremy; I'm a former alcoholic,' or, "Hi, I'm Jeremy; I'm a former drug addict,' or, "Hi, I'm Jeremy; I'm a former homosexual'?" Justus whispered up to me, "That wouldn't be good 'cause Dad's a preacher!"

oh-my-my-my.... We have got progress to make...!! ;)

The raves continue to roll in about the seminar! A comment from a Palo Verde member, in an e-mail I received today was, "Thanks again for all the hard work you did to make the weekend a rousing success!" Awesome....

Daddy's takin' us to the zoo tomorrow.