Bits and Pieces

It's closing in on spring.  Sixty degrees today. Tulip time.  I see so many people across the continent still shoveling their way out of winter.  Grateful.

So my church had a six week course on community and community building.  I had  a problem with it, mainly because the guy on the video was the teensiest bit dogmatic and demanding.  I wasn't the only one with abrasions and contusions over  him.  Those of us who had left the church—for decades because of leaders like that—felt it viscerally.  Some of us slid away from that.   (Here's an aside:  my sweet, accepting Methodist church is traditional but open; thoughtful and brilliant.  Those kinds of demands are never made.)

About 450 of us stayed however.  And here's what happened.  We broke into small groups and each group was directed to come up with a community service project.  Some of them could be inside the church, but we were supposed to help people on the outside of our church as well.  My group, with two other groups, wanted to throw a housewarming party for the family moving into a Habitat for Humanity house, our church helped frame last spring.  One group wants to do a kitchen shower, the other group wants to provide the tools for keeping the house in good shape.  Love that. Another group wanted to host a bingo party at the VA.  Another is raising money to buy Bibles for the 3rd graders at the Wilder church, some of them in Spanish.  There are others, equally brilliant,  motivated by love for  the peeps in our community.   That feels wonderful.  Hope we do a project like this next year too.

So, some of my readers come from the Ukraine.  Praying for everybody's safety and the ability for that country to find a leader who understands freedom and governmental structures that are reasonable for those populations.

Update on Gail:  End of the second week.  She's had big doses of chemo and radiation.  Already her mouth is sore and there is that bone tired exhaustion.  None of that is a surprise.  Incredibly difficult, just the same.  Thinking about her around the clock.

Spring seems to be the time for big changes.  I'm praying that those are good for everybody.