moving

A Personal Update after a Relocation Marathon

Idaho View

This post marks my first blogging effort from the famous potato state. While Jan and I miss our families, church, neighbors, and friends back home, we thank God for bringing us to this gorgeous place on our latest adventure.

I last posted on August 15. You can read about peacemaking lessons gleaned from my fifteen years at Orlando Grace Church here.

The challenges of moving from the tropics of Central Florida to the wilds of North Central Idaho put any writing assignments on hold longer than anticipated. Time to blow the dust off the blog again.

“Move” is a four-letter word.

The image above shows the view to the west from our new street address. Just to the right, a 1/4 mile gravel road leads down to our doublewide home.

Talk about a whirlwind change!

In forty-five days, Jan and I left OGC, visited my Pennsylvania roots, held an estate sale, closed on our home, flew to Boise, bought a vehicle, and turned a vacation house into a permanent residence.

Where do we go from here? Three things:

One, rest. We plan to make no decisions about the next season of ministry until the end of the year. The succession push took its toll. We welcome some quality downtime.

Two, wait on the Lord. He knows what the future holds in terms of my employment. Proverbs 3:5-6 defines our agenda on a daily basis.

A small church plant in the area has expressed interest in me as a part-time pastor. I will preach there for the first time this Sunday. The need there played a significant role in influencing Jan and me in the decision to move to Idaho.

Three, strengthen the platform for my book.

FBheader

Baker Publishing Group has confirmed that TPC will hit the shelves on November 20. They produced this Facebook header for me along with a similar version for Twitter.

All that to say, the emphasis for now involves resuming my online presence and other means for getting the word out about the book. Prayers are appreciated.

Jan and I don’t know how the Lord might work to guide our future through the book’s release, but we are asking Him to use it to help believers to eagerly preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace in their churches (Eph. 4:1-3).

His will be done!

Soli Deo Gloria

Now that I have your attention.

That’s what it feels like.

Having to move the office this week so we can function out of our new building is a herculean task. In addition we needed to exit the SDA storage room once and for all. Checked that off the list today, with the help of a fabulous summer intern with a will to work. But all of this makes it really difficult to get after the work of the ministry that OGC is really about.

Teddie has declared war on the office move and has made a lot of progress. I go back in tomorrow to try and pack books and cull files. Everything is dictated this week by the looming deadline of the office move this Saturday. Please contact the deacons if you can help and need more information.

In the meantime it is a bit challenging to keep up with the emails, phone calls, texts and the like. We beg your forbearance during this week and next while we try to make this move happen. Hopefully things will return to normal as soon as possible and we can get back to the work we really love to do.

Of course, if you have an emergency, don’t hesitate to contact us, but be sure to call as opposed to email as I especially am not on line as often these two weeks.

Thanks!