So the bullet-point version of my life right now is as follows:
- Wrapping up my work at St Middle School on Easter Sunday.
- Last Vestry meeting this evening - went well - good folks - I'll miss them.
- Trying to get the land transaction for the parish done, or mostly done, before I go. Meeting with the county tax assessor next week regarding this. Don't ask - government isn't supposed to be logical, you silly goose!
- Visiting some parishioners in need of attention prior to my departure. Sad to leave some in mid-crisis, but God will be with them and he is ever so much more effective than I am at Pastoral Care.
- I'm trying to get slightly ahead of the curve on bulletins, because we do the whole service in the bulletin, not just page numbers and hymn numbers, and it's a chore an interim shouldn't have to do right out of the box.
- We have a contract on a really lovely house. Negotiating an adjusted price now based upon the findings of the house inspection. Old houses are an interesting challenge.
- Thinking about the physical move gives me the fantods. Mover is coming tomorrow to give an estimate.
- Thinking about where to begin with the Church by the Lakeside...I suppose a good way to start is to just get to know the people and get to love them before I start to move the chess pieces around, right?
- Church by the Lakeside is planning an insert in a ValPak mailer - one of those collections of little ads that comes by snail mail - advertising my impending arrival. I feel sort of like the new model year Prius - will she be good and really energy-efficient or will she just race around and the brakes won't work? When they asked for a picture of me that I liked to include on the ad, I about spat up my coffee. No such thing exists.
Thinking about StoneMason, whose 24th birthday is Monday. I wish he were here so I could bake him a cake, but his sibs are all going to the North Country to go snowboarding with him, so he'll have a fun time. He has another competition next weekend, then flies out west to coach at the snowboarding nationals. What a guy!
So very tired. Time for bed. BBL.
All of that PLUS Holy Week makes me feel kind of shell shocked...Having left my curacy on Easter Sunday I can only offer prayers that it's a less searing experience for you...and utterly endorse your feeling that getting to know/love people was your priority at your new church. It was, as it happens, the agreed priority for my first year here - and I think it helped all round. Blessings
ReplyDeleteGood luck, Mibi!
ReplyDeleteDo you have Neal Michell's book How to Hit the Ground Running? You can get it from Church Publishing. I found it a good read, even if I didn't do all that it said.
ReplyDeleteRDM, I'm going to check out that book. Thanks for the reco.
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