Stretching and Stretching

from the mom

The last few months have been very stretching for our little church. In August, we lost our priest and his family (his wife and son were the worship leaders). Since then our services have been officiated by a military chaplain who attends our church. We have been really blessed to have him helping and I have appreciated his love of history and the fresh perspective he brings.

However, there was a lot of work to be done. And there are basically five families to do the work. And there's a lot to do. In a month's time, Mike was asked to serve on the Rector's Council, I became the financial administrator, and we became the church youth leaders. The latter I am excited about, mainly because we have six amazing teens who asked us to lead them through the Old Testament. Yeah, they asked. And they have also become readers and learned musical instruments to lead us in worship.

But the financial administrator part....Well I've been reminding God that this is SOOO not my gift for over a month now.

Today I was feeling overwhelmed. I had a frightening email from the Department of Labor and Industries and then a call from a clerk in City government. She was friendly and directed me the Department of Licensing and I finally called the diocesan office in California and found help. And then I was on the phone with the bank.

And then tonight, I had a Facebook message from the person who is moving from California next month to be our priest. He is giving up his life there to come and serve five families who asked for a shepherd. He wrote that he looked forward to being with us (permanently) soon. This from a person who has to find a job to support himself in order to be our priest. And I was overwhelmed. By his gift. And also because the last two months have been some of the most beautiful in the life of our parish. Everyone has pulled together to make this work. Everyone has been stretched to do something new. We have one starting seminary; another who has taken on being our worship leader and who sends us new songs on YouTube to learn so we can know them on Sunday morning. Another is helping me with finances and using her bookkeeping background to help me out. And yet another is laundering vestments. Some set up and tear down (in our temporary space.) No one has complained. And you know, I'm not really sure I would want to go back to what we were before.