Alright, So technically it’s Saturday, but I haven’t gone to bed yet, so it’s still Friday for me. We just had a big event earlier tonight, but I’ll get to that later. First, though, I have to get you up to speed on how we got here and how we’re doing. I warn you first, though; it’s a bit long, so get a cup o’ joe and let’s get started.

We started off on May 29th from our humble little basement apartment, cramming everything we didn’t put in the moving trailer into our Escort and took off at around 10:30am. We were a little tired, because we went over to Drew’s the night before and hung out with him and Amanda, so we got to bed around 2 in the morning. So Sarah slept for most of the first leg, which took us to Grove City, PA, where Sarah’s Aunt Gay lives with her husband John and their four kids. I chatted shop talk with John, as he’s a Presbyterian pastor at Tower Pres in the middle of town. We had some burgers and dogs, took some pictures, then we were off on the road again.

We took the turnpikes across the top of Ohio and part of Indiana before stopping at a Service Plaza near Illinois. For those unfamiliar with the system, the turnpikes are toll roads that charge you like twelve bucks to go across the state, and the have service plazas with gas and food right on the road, so you don’t have to exit at “Zeke’s Discount Fuel & Grub” in the middle of nowhere. We slept at the plaza for a few hours, and started out again in the morning. Fortunately, we hit Chicago during normal rush time, but it was Memorial Day, so we sailed right through. I was unprepared, however, for the torture that was Wisconsin. That state seemed to take forever.

We finally made it through, though, and the Twin Cities are right there on the MN-WI border. We made it to our apartment building a little early, and tried to call the manager, who said she could meet us to let us in, but we couldn’t reach her. So we stayed at the Super 8 right across the street that night.

Tuesday morning we awoke, went to our place, and shot the video of the place. We then went shopping, got our driver’s licenses, car tags, and made it back in time for the moving trailer to get here. Nyke came over with some guys from the youth ministry to help us unload the boxes into our third floor apartment. If they hadn’t been there, it would have taken me like a zillion years. Or something like that. So we at least got everything in the door before I had to start work the next day.

My first several days were great. I had a ton of meetings, meeting with Nyke’s boss, Randy O’Brien, who is pretty cool. He oversees the ministries from birth through about forty years old. I also met Jeff Kornoelje, who is the Director of Operations for the church. He also was very cool. (I’m sure there are other adjectives to describe these folks, but hey, I do work in youth ministry.) Then there were others in HR and Accounting and Facilities. I won’t list everyone, but they were all friendly for the most part. Oh, and Nyke swung me a great office. It still says “Conference Room” on the nameplate, but I got my business cards in, so I’m sure it won’t be long before my name’s on the door.

So we got through the weekend and then we flew down to Cincinnati for my great Aunt’s funeral. We got to see my grandparents, which I was thankful for, because we didn’t get a chance to see them when we were in Alabama. Sadly, it was only a one day trip, because I had to be back at work on Tuesday. Even sadlier, it took us an hour to find our car at the airport. We were in such a rush to catch the plane in the morning that we didn’t mark where we were parked. I’m sure it was hilarious looking in, but it was exhausting to us.

Sunday morning deserves its own paragraph. I led worship for the junior highers, before going to the 10:30 service. Pastor Daniel Henderson was in Canada for his anniversary, so a friend of his from Uganda spoke. Let me just tell you that you have to listen to the message he gave. It’s not up at the time of this writing, but I think it will be soon. The whole morning was amazing, and I wish all of you could have been there for the music and videos, but at least you can listen to the message. I’ll try to host it on here when it comes out, because it’s that good. If you don’t listen, it’s definitely your loss. And you all know I’m not this pushy, so don’t forget.

The Wednesday after that was my first time leading worship for the High Schoolers in their weekly service. It was a little rough musically because we had never played together before, and some songs were new to the band, and we weren’t all “in it” at first, but once we got going and giving it up, it didn’t matter. It’s great how praise music does that. So that was a good night. And it wasn’t even dark when we were done at 9:15pm.

Thursday was business as usual, and I had some little things to take care of through the day. Friday we had a thing in the evening called “Jamboree”. This is where the new 8th and 9th graders welcome the new 7th graders in to the Junior High ministry. (At Grace, the 5th and 6th Graders are in a separate ministry called “The Wave”.) We went to a Community Center. Only these things aren’t like Virginia, where it’s a place for seniors to hang out. This place had a spiral water slide into a huge pool, a hot tub, a community theatre seating 230, an ice skating rink, an indoor turf field for soccer, etc., a snack bar, fitness rooms, racquetball, and probably more. And this is for just one of the little suburb towns here!

So here I sit, broken hearted… Ha ha, just kidding. We’re really happy and blessed to be here. It’s a great church in great surroundings. At least until Winter…

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