I spent Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, tuned in live stream to the Writers Workshop Conference at Bethel Church in Redding CA. The conference covered, film screenwriting, novels, non-fiction, and creative art. I was not so interested in the screenwriting sessions, but it was interesting to listen to the screenwriters of "God's Not Dead" speak on their craft. They wrote for secular Hollywood until 2008, when God spoke to them about writing for Christian films. A couple of speakers were from Bethel and were good as always, but our favorite was Ted Dekker, best selling author. He was powerful and had so many insights for writing.....and for life. Joel tuned in to those sessions too, so we had much to discuss. Overall, it was great!
Joel is now off to a Synod Assembly at Wartburg college only an hour from here. He is coming home to sleep at night, which his wife appreciates very much. This will be his last assembly in this corner of the world, unless God shuts the door to Arizona. We keep praying for His plan to prevail.
We had such a great time at the wedding last weekend. It is always fun to hug on our grands and family, and since we love to dance, we were out there a lot on the dance floor with grands, siblings, and our kids. On Sunday our family went to lunch at The Country Buffet. It was a great place to go because it had food for all of us to choose from, it was quiet and not crowded, and we could visit as long as we wanted. The ceremony went well as I wrote earlier, and as usual, Whitney and Brendan were gracious and appreciative. They spent a great deal of time visiting with their guests
I went with Joel and Beth (who played keyboard) to the second rehearsal right before the ceremony. It was a long steep walk to the place from the main building so I stayed up at the top...standing a long time in the heat before I asked someone if there was a place I could sit down inside. This young man, Whitney's partner in business, escorted me right into the small bar and even pulled out my chair for me sit down. How gracious.....and how grateful I was. But if you know me, you know I was never fond of bars (understatement of the year) and drinking. I have mellowed over the years, so I sat with my bottle of water, in the bar with the big screen TV, for an hour while waiting for my cowboy preacher to come find me after practice. I watched him come in with his clerical collar on and book in hand and had to chuckle.
It took me back to Medicine Lake, Montana where the parsonage was only 1/2 block from the local bar. It brought to mind the one night when I heard this awful thud outside. I ran out into the street and could see that on the corner a pick-up had gone into a house! Joel and I ran down to see if we could help and went inside to find a woman with her hands in the air, praising Jesus! A pick-up chassis was sitting right in her living room. She had just gotten up to go into the kitchen when a drunk man (from our congregation) put his car in reverse while flooring it, and went backwards at high speed from the street in-between two pine trees and right through her outside wall, ending up in her living room. Thankfully no one was hurt.
Here's the funny.....she saw Joel and said, "Oh, I thought I had died and gone to heaven until I saw the LUTHERAN pastor in front of me.....giggle.....guess we didn't quite fit her idea of who would be in Heaven! We took care of her until her daughter arrived, and then Joel also talked with the congregational member who was unscratched and unaware of the whole event. Life as a pastor in the wild West. (Grin)
Back to the weekend......We also saw old friends the day before the wedding. We have known them since living in Salt Lake City Utah in 1970-72. They are the nicest people! It was great to catch up....it was like we just saw each other yesterday instead of years ago. Blessings on you Marge and Dick. Blessings!
Joel spent Monday sorting through 35 years of office stuff...including 4 large tubs of books. Very emotional time for him, but he said as he got into the task at hand, it became easier and easier. He has not really had a permanent church office for quite a while now, but has worked from our home office....well, actually his home office. It changed hands :) and I have no complaints. Having him home always makes me smile so he can take over any space he wants. Ha...
I have been finishing up books this week ~~~ "The Supernatural Power of a Transformed Mind" by Bill Johnson and "The Supernatural Ways of Royalty" by Kris Vallotton. I'm into the Praying Medic's book, "Divine Healing" and I am close to finishing his book, "My Craziest Adventures with God".We have watched a few reruns on TV, but most of the week was spent live-streaming the writers conference. What has been going on in your corner of the world?
No comments:
Post a Comment