Good news on the job front.  Debbie was offered a job yesterday that will start Jan 3.  We have a packet of information coming that will spell out all of the details.  It seems to be a better fit than where she was and it seems a better insurance plan.  That has become all important right now as we move off of COBRA in January.  We had great insurance with my old company. 

The final papers are slowly getting done.  My final for Theology seems to keep working it's way down the list almost like I was putting off doing the paper.  I won't be able to do that for too much longer.  It is due on Tuesday next week.  I have about 35% of my Hebrew final done.  Luckily for us it is a take home this year.  It wasn't last year.  I have two classes completely done out of six.  One more is mostly done.  The other two still have a decent amount of work.

We have our Advent Event tonight.  Dinner and drinks and music.  It should be a fun time for all and a great chance to take our mind off of school and release a little bit of stress that has built up in everyone this last week or two.  It turns out from Thanksgiving until the end of school is pretty much non-stop school work.  Twelve to fourteen hours of it a day, six to seven days a week gets old after a while.  My brain starts to feel like mush and doesn't want to operate like normal.  I know, what is normal? 

Thankfully Debbie has handled all of the Christmas buying.  Not that there is much of that right now, but she has handled it so I don't have to worry about it.  She is really good about doing that during Christmas and always has been.  What a help for me who doesn't like shopping anyway and doesn't like spending money in an even worse way.  Christmas has become too commercialized.  I would love to have a Christmas of no presents for anyone so we could bring our focus back to Advent and the celebration of the birth of Jesus.  I doubt that will happen in my lifetime.  Maybe a trend can be started to bring the focus back.  But what power is the church against the marketing billions of dollars spent to tell us what we have to have to measure up?  Only as an act of God for sure!  Come Lord Jesus!

Starting Theology soon, got to go.  God bless each of you.  May your hearts be open to the Holy Spirit this Advent season. 

It was 22 this morning with a wind chill of 17.  I wore the scarf that Issy knitted for me this morning.  It is cold.  The forecast is 40 degrees today.  Luckily not bone chilling cold,  but for the Southeast it is cold. 

It is the time of year where the amount of work left to do and the amount of time left to do it are not in proper relation.  Much as everyone this time of year, I guess.  The good thing about this semester is not having any final exams.  All of my finals are papers.  This is good, as I am not crazy about cramming for exams.  At least with papers I have resources I can reference to help me.  The last several days have been almost non-stop class, field work, paper writing.  It will be over by the end of next week one way or the other.  Pedal to the metal until then. 

I wonder what it would take to reduce the stress level of this time of year for everyone so that we could contemplate the celebration of the birth of Christ?  With everything going on and the commitments everyone has  I understand why it is difficult to turn our attention to this.  I hope each of you, (OK, both of you) are able to spend sometime in contemplation about the coming of Christ as a child into our world and what that means.  We are living this reality whether we can understand it or appreciate it or not.  We are so blessed during this time that God remains faithful even when we are not able. 

I just remembered something that happened since my last post.  The workload where Deb worked was very slow so they let her go.  She is actively working to find another job.  The bigger issue with this is the insurance as our COBRA is running out.  The insurance offered from the school is not good if you are not in your early twenties so we remain trusting in the Lord to provide.

We are working through the process of Internship and assignments.  We find out our assignment in March.  We are trying to stay here in Columbia given all of the health issues that have come up.  We will see how the Holy Spirit works in this process and trust the path illuminated for us. 

God bless all of you.  Keep your mind on the real reason for Christmas as we stress over trying to keep up with expectations and commitments.  Until we talk again...

It Was Cold This Morning

Something very nice has happened since last Friday.  Somewhere in the week I realized I feel like I am hitting my stride this semester.  On top of this I realized I am having more fun this semester.  I think the later is because this semester is more about learning and forming our theology.  I only have one class with tests, Hebrew and they are a quiz twice a week with midterm and final, but both are take home.  We are getting into some great topics and discussions this semester and I am really enjoying it.  I have preached my second of three sermons, the funeral sermon.  I believe my grade will be pretty good on it after my review with my professor, so I guess I am back into passing status in that class.  It was so beneficial to preach my first funeral sermon in class with other students doing role play to give us feedback.  I guess this experience might have the benefit of several in the parish as we got honest hard hitting feedback that I doubt people in the congregation would be willing to give to the pastor after the funeral.  Most of it is in realizations of where people are in the process of grieving and trying to achieve balance between eulogizing and preaching the gospel during the sermon.  What a gift to get the opportunity to do this in school. 

Deb has been doing better.  She seems to have stabilized on her new medicines and that seems to make all the difference.  She is back in the department she was hired for at work, which is good because she was in a different department that she didn't like as much.  Her blood sugar is the lowest it has been in years and seems to be stabilized at this level.  Things are looking up. 

I have my endorsement interview with the Florida Candidacy Committee representatives and my student advisor in about 10 days.  This is the interview to be approved to go to internship.  I have put my application in and we are restricting to stay in Columbia with the challenges we had health wise with Debbie during this transition.  That should save us two moves.  That is a blessing.  We may still move away from campus into an apartment or rental house but that will be local and much different.  Everything else in our world will stay the same.  We still have first call coming as a game changing move, but hopefully things will be better at that point. 

Things are pretty good right now, which kind of has me looking over my shoulder to see where the next one is coming from.  But until it shows up I am going to enjoy this feeling as long as I can.  God bless you on your journey with our Lord and savior Jesus Christ.  Steve

Fall Break is Over

I have a few minutes before Intro to Theology class starts.  We were on something called a break this week.  I am not sure why we call it that other than we don't have classes on Mon-Wed.  That is a good break.  However during this break we had two take home midterms and a sermon exegesis was due in the middle of the break as I was preaching for a grade on the first day back, yesterday.  As always the Holy Spirit brought me through all of this with passing grades I hope.  The sermon I had to preach was the first I have done without a manuscript.  It went pretty well until music from the basement of the chapel became a distraction and caused me to jump ahead a paragraph in my memory.  Not that I won't ever have any distractions when preaching this was a solid reminder that things can happen.  Babies cry, people cough, things happen.  The sermon topic was a funeral sermon.  I am glad to get the first one of these in a class and not a real setting.  The role plays we did within the listeners was very good feedback to understand how people are hearing what we are saying.  The sermon went pretty well but in this class I need to hold off until I get the grade before thinking anything positive.  My first sermon this semester received all positive remarks from the listeners and I flunked it.  Go figure. 

We are putting in our applications for internship next year.  I have my interview with the representatives of the Candidacy Committee and my academic advisor the first week of November.  I have our (Debbie and me) interview with a faculty member on the internship committee that assigns us the first week in December.  We are given our assignments towards the end of March.  The Holy Spirit at work for sure.

In our Intro to Worship class today we had some great discussion on the necessity of baptism for salvation.  I really enjoy these types of discussions.  They force us out of our nice tidy little boxes to consider God on a larger level.  Some people don't like what that turns out to be,  but I think it is healthy for us at this stage and maybe during God's whole ministry through us.  We came down to within baptism and the intent to baptize we are saved.  Beyond this we don't really know because the scripture is about our life in the faith.  It doesn't really say anything about out life outside the faith.  We can only take bigger picture aspects of God and try to extrapolate from there.  There isn't really anyway to know for sure.  We live in hope.

Class is getting ready to start.  I like using this time to catch up so this might be a way that I can keep more in touch than I have been this semester.  God bless both of you.  May God be forever active in your lives.

Greetings both of you:

Overwhelmed is a description I can use of my current feelings.  At this point I am just trying to stay dedicated to the process of homework and class time.  Deb has had some health issues that have kept her from work and us in the ER and doctor's offices.  Classes have been going well so far, but the amount of reading and work outside class is heavier than last year.  One good thing is this year I only have one class with tests, Hebrew and there are two quizes a week in this class.  The rest of the classes are all papers.  I like this concept.  Last year was memorize and regurgitate and this year is read, listen, think, reflect or research.  Greek Readings is eating my lunch with time it takes, especially for a 1 credit hour class.  Hebrew is going pretty good so far.  I don't know if going through Greek last year has me less anxious about it or if it just clicks in my head differently than Greek did.  I co-lead chapel tomorrow in the morning and preach a stewardship sermon in the afternoon for preching class.  The sermon is done, I just need to practice the presentation. 

Normally we go for Internship for a year in our third year, but there are some situations where we can go in our fourth year and finish our book studies in our third year.  That concept has come to mind recently and seems to be gaining some ground in my head.  We will see how the Spirit works with this over the next several months as we have to have our Endorsement interviews and essays done before the end of the year. 

One thing that really has my head working in the background is my Theology class.  Right at the end of class we discussed this concept that God is of other than this world.  Fine, no problem with me.  But to go along with this is the idea God is not of this world.  I asked if that meant that God is not limited to this world, which I totally agree with, but was told no.  God is not of this world, (if I understood the response correctly), if God was of this world God could not be of other than this world.  I still don't understand how that could be and hope to hear more on Friday to back this up, because at this point I am not able to get on board with this concept.  I wonder if this isn't more in our understanding and use of the restrictors of the lead up to the definition.  At this point it is pretty obvious I don't understand something about this statement.  I guess my brain needs some more stretching. 

I have to finish up for Greek Readings in the morning.  God bless you all.  Steve

We have attended all of our classes now.  This is going to be one busy semester.  Enough of the glass half empty stuff.  The new class is here and they seem to be a good class.  I am a mentor and our mentor group has met several times already.  We had lunch together yesterday and talked about challenges.  The seniors are back and they seem to have a good attitude.  I know it must be difficult to come back to the classroom after being in the parish for a year.  They seem to be taking it well.  I haven't seen any attitudes of being to good to do this.  This should be a good year. 
At some point this semester I will be interviewed by two people from the Candidacy Committee and my Student Advisor to determine my suitability for internship.  I have already turned in my 10 page paper addressing the items on this years endorsement essay topics and final input from our CPE Supervisors weighs on their decision.  I am not too worried about this.  I would however like to be able to check it off of the list.  All things in their time. 
Not too much else new.  Greek Readings is giving me fits, but Hebrew so far has not been bad.  But that is only 3 classes into the year long course.  If I understand anything in my theology class I will let you know.  Dr. Yeago talks on a pretty high level.  Sometimes I need a ladder to get up there, so I have to keep one in my book bag.  I can do this considering the one who carried a cross for me.
Blessings to all of you.
Steve

Back to it as a Middler

I guess summer is over when classes start back. I have been playing introvert during the last three weeks. CPE (Clinical Pastoral Education) was great. I was a hospital chaplain for 10 weeks in Greenwood SC at Self Regional Hospital. I can’t say enough good things about Self and the program. The people were great and the experience was a fantastic learning experience. The goal of this, in my mind, was to expose us to all these different ministry situations and see what that brought up in us. Once we identify something, and believe me I can’t imagine anyone going through this without having something come up, we work on it in a group and individually with the Supervisor. I put in a lot of hours so I was pretty tired after starting two days after we moved up to Columbia. Greenwood is about 70 miles from Columbia, so I would come home on the weekends. 92 year old Miss Dot was kind enough to let me stay at her house during the ten weeks. We got along famously. I will miss her. It was good to have the three weeks off, but another three weeks would have been great. One of the bad things about CPE is that I didn’t have a place to work out, so I went 10 weeks with only working out on Saturday a few times. I have gotten back into working out but not as many times a week as I need to. Still a work in progress.


To bring all of you up to speed from the summer: Debbie got a good job in a doctor’s office working about one and a half miles from where we live. Can’t get much closer than that. She does billing and backs up the front desk. She says the people are real nice and she really likes it there. Danielle is working at the same company she worked for in Sarasota but in a much higher volume store here in Columbia. Hopefully with school starting back up and everyone on campus they can both get involved in something here to meet people. We have a welcoming picnic this evening. Deb will get to go, but Danielle is closing at work tonight. Sam just came up for about 5 days and we had a good visit. She went back home this morning. We have moved into one of the four bedroom townhouses on campus. It is three stories with fairly small rooms. We got rid of a lot of stuff when we moved, but we still have to jettison more. For me that is good, I seem to be moving towards a minimalist. For others, not so much. We have been going to my field church all summer and the girls are getting acclimated there. I start my second year of field education there on September 19th. We look forward to another move in about 10 months. (Don’t believe everything you read on the Internet.)

I worked so many hours in CPE that I didn’t keep up on my Greek. I have Greek Readings this semester. We translate the Gospel text for each week. I have been a little stressed out over what has slipped out of my brain during the summer. I did get my pre-class assignment of Luke 15:1-10 and a worksheet asking about how certain words are being used done yesterday. Class isn’t until Thursday morning so I am good. However, I am beginning to think Greek will haunt me until I get out of here. And to make things even more fun we start Hebrew tomorrow morning. I am not going to know which side of the page to read from this whole semester. Interestingly this year several of the classes have given us assignments or reading assignments prior to class starting. I guess a seminarian sitting around doing nothing is not a pretty sight so someone had to do something about this.

I was asked to be a mentor to the incoming class this year. A Middler and a Senior take on about 8-10 students coming in. We have a meeting this afternoon to pair the Middlers and Seniors and assign the Juniors to us. It was helpful last year to have the mentors around so I felt it a good thing to do for the incoming class. I will also be working in the computer lab again this year. I am looking for anything to do around campus to earn some extra money. Some opportunities come up and they are welcomed.

That is all I have for now.  It has been a while since we talked.  I will be back at it again now that school has started.  God bless each of you.  Really both of you,  but I like to think big. 

Signed, Sealed and Delivered

I have never seen a professor have finals graded in less than 24 hours. Wow! Greek final grade: 84. Another WOW! I am not worried about the other classes, I know I did well enough to pass. This Greek final though was something I walked away from going; “I don’t know how I did.” When you are translating, you give it a good guess and hope your vocab was accurate. I am glad that Holy Spirit class is behind me. We have not all passed though. I know of at least one of my friends that will have to alter his path through seminary because of this. He has our prayers.


Now I am just trying to get a hold of my new CPE site to see if I need to go over there this afternoon before I leave. This has been a last minute change of plans because about 10 days ago Debbie and I were talking and something that happened caused us to give consideration again to her moving up here. The Holy Spirit took over and wow can things happen quickly when the Spirit is at work. Debbie and Danielle are moving up here about June 3. Sam will stay in Sarasota with Blake’s family. This is such great news. Having been two seven week stretches in between seeing her and the family was too much this semester. Now we are on the path together. I am very excited about this. We have already been assigned one of the four bedroom townhomes that we have as of June 1.

Especially since we will be leaving I am really looking forward to worshipping in my home congregation these last few weeks. I will miss them and will need to find a way to keep in touch.

As of know I know that I am flying home but don’t have a ticket since I am not sure when I can get out of here other than we have a wedding rehearsal on Friday night that I need to be at. I guess I will be home before then.

At this point I am going to stop posting until CPE starts on June 7. The local congregation pastor has already found me a room with someone to stay and I will come home on the weekends when I am not on call. Thanks to all of you for following me. I don’t know how graduation will feel since I have never graduated from college, but the end of this first year has so many great aspects that I feel very blessed just to be at this point. Not having a college degree, I have never proven I could come up here and handle this load of graduate level classes. The first semester wasn’t too bad, but this semester turned the burner up to med hi at least. Leaving the corporate world for this has been validated in so many ways this year. There are many challenges ahead in school and ministry. Around here our Pastoral Care professor has a model of life that goes; go, suffer, be killed, be raised, and point to the Lord. This means go, suffer while you become a new person, that old person is killed figuratively, and a new you is raised. That new you points to the Lord as witness to the new life He brings. I really like this analogy. I feel the old me has come, suffered and been killed here. The new me has been raised today and I am pointing to the life giving goodness of our Lord. God bless you all as I know some of you are going through some tough times right now. I have you in prayer, bring your challenges to the Lord and lay them at His feet so that He can take them on and relieve you of that yoke. Amen.

We Can See the Finish Line!

A quick post before heading to Intro to Preaching class.  I have not been as diligent in posting this semester for some reason.  I think the amount of writing we are doing for our classes is probably the culprit.  This semesters writing vs. last semester is close to double.  The good thing in this trade-off is I have fewer final tests.  I have seven classes this semester and only 3 written finals and a verbal final, which I have already taken and passed. 

The Holy Spirit is working overtime in my life right now.  I will have more on that in upcoming posts.  I am still waiting for things to come together before I know just how it is working in my life.  I'll tell you though, when the Holy Spirit gets active it is amazing how fast things can fall into place.  I contacted five people yesterday about something and had responses back from all of them in less than six hours.  One of them was able to give me three answers before ten o'clock last night.  Stand back and look out when the Spirit is working or should I say make sure you have your seat belt strapped on. 

Everyone here is very focused trying to stay diligent to finishing out the semester.  I am not sure of the timing of this, but this week we have our ping-pong tournament.  Next year the timing will be better I hope.  I have three finals in two days, but good thing is we have the weekend leading into the finals to study.  Two are on Monday and Greek is on Tuesday at 5:00pm.  I can taste the end of Greek, I just have to stay on it to pass the finish line.  I know what a marathoner that has run almost 26 miles and sees the finish line feels like. 

Have a blessed week.  "There is one body, and one Spirit, even as you are called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism." Ephesians 4:4-5

A Great Weekend

It was great to get away for a weekend.  Getting to see Debbie and Danielle and my best friend and his wife were the best.  Sam didn't get to come, but it would have been great to see her also.  You really feel how much you miss someone or some someones when you finally get to see them again.  It was a chill out weekend which worked well for me.  I hope it worked well for everyone else.  Coming back well stocked with Stella wasn't bad either.  We had a great evening Friday night as we went out for pizza.  Great pizza and the company made it even better.  One of those evenings you can't plan, they just happen.  Then Saturday we went down to St. Augustine walked around, had some lunch and did the snacky thing for dinner with shrimp, steak pieces, dry salami, pepperoni, crackers, pita chips, and margaritas.  It was a great day to turn 50.

On Sunday I got to meet a new friend, Pastor Vicki Hamilton in urban Jacksonville.  We have been introduced through a mutual friend from my experience in Atlanta and the Urban Plunge in January.  She is a neat lady and I imagine we have some interesting conversations to ahead of us.

Now, back to school and focus.  If I can stay focused for 3 weeks this semester will be over and I can put a check mark on the first year.  Wow has this flown by.  Talk to you all later.  God bless each of you.  Steve

You would think it is winding down around here as we get towards the end of the semester.  Quite the contrary.  We are all hunkered down trying to finish.  The work left to do seems disproportionate to the time left.  Papers are one concern.  Finals are the other.  Somehow it will get done.  We just don't know how at this point.  Weekend with Debbie is coming up.  Finally!  We have only seen each other for three days since January 9th.  That is not enough and next year will have to be different.  I know that there are other people, especially with those loved ones in the military that go much longer than this between visits.  I don't know how they do it other than they just do.  Just like how does a family handle triplets?  They just do.  You call on your friends and family and make it work.  I am thankful for the friends that Deb has had back home to lean on during this time.  Thank you!  Now, back to studying.  God bless each of you.

One test back in amazing time.  79 on the Greek test.  That is passing and I will run from class with it!  The scores of everyone that I have talked to so far are heading down with each test.  Only one more left to pass the course!  And if that isn't enough fun, passing Greek means I get to look forward to Hebrew next year.  I am having a hard time containing my excitement.  I am sure you can understand.  God bless each of you, have a great rest of the week.  Steve

Sorry to be inattentive to this.  We have a Greek test tonight, History of Christianity test tomorrow and Confessions Book of Concord review session where we all have responsibility for one or two topics to review and determine all the places they are listed in the Book of Concord on Thursday.  Think Holy Spirit week.  I will be back with more later.  God bless you and help you through any trials you are facing at this time, as I expect it will help me.  Steve

Happy Easter

I delivered the first load of food for the homeless Friday morning as pictured. We were able to get 878 items to hand out for the $218 we spent as a class. We hope that lasts the ministry about a week. Now the challenge is how to do this a second time. Columbia has a winter shelter that is opened in November and closes on March 31. The shelter closed this week. They housed about 240 people every night. That means that 240 additional chronically homeless people are on the streets until November. They are hungry every day and they need a place to sleep every day. In trying to help I came to the realization that what we are doing is only a small thing compared to the need that is continuing, ongoing every day of the year. At first that made me think "why do it at all?  It won't make a difference"However, I think the appropriate way to think about this is we all do a little bit and it comes together through God’s plan to be this huge supply of food and clothes and the things these people need to survive on the streets. If we think that the little we do won’t make a difference to this huge need then we are over thinking God’s plan. Many hands make light and non-burdensome work. That allows people to continue to be involved in this type of ministry. As a person I highly respect used to ask me “how do eat an elephant?” The answer is “one bite at a time.” Many people doing their small part is how this huge work is orchestrated and these people and people in every city in this country and around the world get fed and clothed and survive each day on this earth. At this point, I am very open to how God might be leading me and our class, or the few that want to be involved, to do this a second time, which will lead to the third time and so on. My goal, I think through God, is to be able to bring food like this every week. Breakfast is the one meal here in Columbia that is only supplied on a spotty basis. Every Sunday, some Saturdays, and when the shelter is closed not on the weekdays in an organized way. This coffee ministry just serves coffee and whatever someone or some company might donate. When there are donations, there is food. When there are no donations, there is coffee. And there is always praising of our Lord, sometimes it starts spontaneously through the homeless. It is very cool thing to see the Holy Spirit working.


Not getting to come home this week has been kind of a downer. Deb and I have a weekend scheduled the end of April to meet about half way and celebrate my best friend’s birthday. That has helped to mitigate some of the down feelings. We just maintain our focus on that positive event and not so much on the negative of not getting to come home for a few days this week. That has helped along with how busy I have been this week.


This week, Holy Week has by far been the busiest of my very short seminary career. We are on break this week and the goal was to get my three papers and two sermons and Greek study and about 200 pages of reading out of the way. I guess I didn’t realize what an aggressive goal that was. As of today two papers and two sermons are done and I have been working harder this week than normal. The Greek and the reading have not been touched. I have been on the committee that is interviewing for a replacement organist since ours is leaving and we have had two interviews and of course the services for Holy Week. We have a service at 10:00pm tonight here at the seminary chapel that should last until after midnight and then we have Easter Sunrise service tomorrow and a 10:00 service. I can see why taking the week after Easter off is a popular thing for pastors. Of course, it isn’t just this week but the combination of Advent leading into Lent culminating with Easter that wears them down. My really short term goal has been modified to get done what I can today as I have to give a sermon in preaching class on Tuesday and take tomorrow off so that I get at least one day in this break to relax and get some energy back to finish up the last five weeks of class.

For the first time last night, standing at the lectern for Good Friday service, I felt like a pastor. I have gotten much closer to my field congregation this semester as I have purposely been more involved in the church. I figure this is my time to learn and there are things I need to learn about being in the church also. So, I have tried to balance my studies with being in the church a little more this semester. It has made a big difference in my relationship with the congregation. This is my second semester there, which helps, but I think they see the effort I put into being there. Pastor mentioned this week my work ethic, which he says isn’t always the case. I see that on this end also. This is puzzling to me.

I pray that you have a great Easter celebration. This has become my best celebration of the year. Christmas has become so commercialized that I have lost most of my interest in it. I hate to admit that but it is true. Easter is our biggest celebration in the church for sure. It has become commercialized also, and is ever increasing as the big companies put their marketing money behind making us think we have to have or give something that they sell to celebrate this day properly. I think the proper way to celebrate it is with your faith family. I hope you get to do this.

I ask you to contemplate a question: did Jesus come to this Earth, minister to the people, die on the cross and rise on the third day for only some of us? If He did, how do you justify that you think you are one of those people He came to save vs. anyone else on this earth? Have you been able to keep the Laws? Of course not, none of us have. We are all sinners. Does God grade sins? I don’t think it would matter, aren’t we all guilty of being a sinner? Guilty! Since I am a sinner, how can I justify standing up in the crowd of all of humanity from all time and say, I deserve to be saved over anyone else. I am a child of God. We are all children of God. God tells us through the Prodigal Son that He waits for us to come home. Will we all come home? I hope so.

"11 But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look* into the tomb; 12and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. 13They said to her, ‘Woman, why are you weeping?’ She said to them, ‘They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.’ 14When she had said this, she turned round and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. 15Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, why are you weeping? For whom are you looking?’ Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, ‘Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.’ 16Jesus said to her, ‘Mary!’ She turned and said to him in Hebrew,* ‘Rabbouni!’ (which means Teacher). 17Jesus said to her, ‘Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.” ’ 18Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, ‘I have seen the Lord’; and she told them that he had said these things to her." John 20:11-18 He Is Risen Indeed!!!

OK, I Know it Has Been a While

Sorry it has been so long since my last post. So far we have two of the three mid-terms back and both have been in the 90’s. So far, so good. We start break today until Monday after Easter. I am not going home because fares are too high for a few days and as it turns out I am buried in work to do with only 5 weeks left when we get back from break. During break my goal is to get 3-10 page papers written, 2 sermons, 1 Exegesis for a sermon, study for Greek test upcoming, come up with my picture of grace for Confessions, read about 200 total pages for upcoming week of class, and read a book that is going SO slow. Other than that I plan to sleep in a lot. :) They announced the election results for next year’s officers and I was elected Treasurer for the Student Body. This will allow me access to the monthly government meetings with the President and Dean to further our ministry of feeding the homeless that our Junior Class has started and of which at this point I seem to be in charge of. The Holy Spirit seems to think I have a lot of spare time it seems.


To update you on the homeless feeding ministry we are trying to get started; we have a distribution ministry that will get the food out to the homeless. I need to touch base with the gentleman that passes out the coffee and the food to work out a time to drop the food off. This ministry that will be distributing has 21 ministry stations in South Carolina of different sorts. I need to get involved with them to learn more but the lady I talked to today says they want to talk to me about being on a board of this feeding ministry to help guide it. They are also trying to get some type of food ministry going that needs some expertise in marketing, signage, flyers, things like that. Is it just amazing what the Lord will do if you just open yourself up to His guidance. This will end up being a longer term thing, BUT since the Seminary is not currently involved in a homeless ministry of any type I think we have a great opportunity to get involved in something that is hands doing God’s work. Needs based ministry. That has become my focus. Find out what the needs are and try to figure out a way to bring resources together with the need. That’s what I think we are called to do. I will keep you updated as there will be much more to share on this subject.

We are discussing Sacraments in our Confessions class. Great discussions and the role plays are really helping. I am still trying to formulate a theology and will continue this during the next two years. CPE this summer should really help this as we are put in an environment of ministering to people in real life situations with supervisors of course. By my senior year they want me to have a theology that I can articulate in a paper that I will have to write. The challenge I am having right now is that I have come to feel that Jesus came to save all of us. Not just the baptized, not just the Christians, not just any one group of us, but all of us. Taking that thought process a step further that would mean that I would not be able to say that baptism is required for salvation. Since, not all are baptized, yet all will be saved as I feel at this point, I seem to have a sticking point with one of our confessional articles. That is the great thing about being here; it is forcing me to think this through completely. As no one knows these answers for sure until we are in heaven and it won’t matter, it is difficult to look at this and say “I know for sure that this is what will happen and what needs to be done between now and then.” From my current point of view I am not able to feel that the God I have come to know will not save everyone. I don’t know how He will do it, but one thing I am figuring out is that every time I try to put limits on God or put Him in a box, I am proven wrong. I prefer to take the outside the box position on this one and believe that He will be outside this box as well. It is not a question of can He? God can do anything He wants. The ONLY question can be ‘Will He?’ To that I say; given the love that I have seen and experienced from Him I believe He will. I am obviously a work in progress.  Peace and love.

And whosoever will be chief among you, let them be your servant; Even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many. Matthew 20:27-28

This is how we know what love is: Christ gave His life for us. And we in our turn must give our lives to our fellow Christians. 1 John 3:16

Mid-terms Done

Three mid-terms and a Greek quiz behind me. Now I wait for the grades. Back to that thing called life. This semester’s mid-terms were a lot like the finals for last semester. One right after another. The challenge with this format is that we have to start building our study guides a couple of weeks in advance. I am hopeful to gain some discipline and start them early on and just keep adding to them. In one class the study guide was 24 pages long. I am not sure how one person learns 24 pages of names, dates, places, events, titles, relationship to other people on the list, etc. This was the class I had the most trouble with of the mid-terms. Just the study guide is something that you have to mentally get past so you can open your brain to study. One way or another the Holy Spirit is making it happen. My only part seems to be to remember how and where to write my name on the front page of the test. So far, so good!


We have approved $200 to buy some shelf stable breakfast food for the homeless from the Junior Class fund. I thought we had a contact to determine the best ministry to distribute this food, but that is not panning out. So, I am on a search today to find that ministry. Once we get this process nailed down this will become a pretty easy thing to do and yet provide one of the things that we have been told is needed in Columbia. There are about 1700 homeless and $200 won’t go far, but it is more important to get the process down so that everyone can gain confidence in this process. Then we can open our minds to the spirit and come up with ideas to raise more money and food.

The weather this time of year is just incredible. Forties at night sixties in the day, I love this type of weather.

Air tickets to go back on our next break got way out of hand for an unemployed seminarian due to spring break into Florida. I will be staying here and working on the three 10 page papers I have due by the end of the semester. Truth be admitted, I probably need to do that anyway to get these papers knocked out. When taking 17 hours there is not much time for working ahead. Debbie and I are trying to figure out meeting in Jacksonville for a weekend.

Things are going great at my field church. Although I have messed up the Kyrie the last two weeks. For some reason it takes me a while to get the new melody in my head when we change the setting. I believe I have it down now and will give it another shot this Sunday. I also did the Children’s Sermon at both services for the first time here. In my home church I have done these quite a few times, I am now in the rotation here. There are some things that you just let come to you if you know what I mean.

LTSS had Seminary Days over this last weekend until Tuesday morning. One of the very positive things about this for the rest of us is that on Monday evening they put on a big dinner for the visiting prospective students. Smoked pulled pork and chicken, coleslaw, corn on the cob, drinks and the seminarians provide the desserts. Sure beats a microwaved chicken patty and chips in the dorm!

That is all the news that is fit to print. I leave you with this difference in the way we as Lutherans look at grace and the way the Reformed (Calvinists) looked at it in the 15th Century from our History of Christianity class as we were taught. The Reformed feel that we have no ability to accept God’s grace as we are only able to think of ourselves and are sinful. God has predetermined who will be saved (the Elected) and who will be condemned to Hell (also called double pre-destination). Jesus Christ died only to atone the sins of the elected, not necessarily for everyone. The Elected are not able to resist His grace no matter how hard they try. They will also be with Him in heaven for all of eternity. This is also called TULIP Calvinism. Total Depravity, Universal Sovereignty, Limited Atonement, Irresistible Grace, and Perseverance of the Saints. Those who eventually became known, much against Martin Luther’s wishes, as the Lutheran’s believe that we are only able to resist Gods grace, although there was a controversy over our ability to at least not resist. God has not predetermined who shall be saved and who shall be damned. I believe the statement is that we are saved by grace through faith alone. Now the other part of this is that true faith brings good works, you want to do these good works because you understand what Jesus Christ did for us. You don’t have to do these good works to be saved as that would be relying on our own abilities to be saved. We don’t have those abilities; therefore we could never live up to the requirements to be saved through our good works alone. God wills all of His children to be saved and sent His Son to atone for all of our sins. Those saved will be with God for all of eternity. I don’t know about you, but I would not like to know that I was already predestined to damnation for all of eternity. While I am nothing but sinful by myself, I believe that Jesus came to atone for all of our sins. I am prayerful that means we are all going to be saved and spend eternity with our Creator. That is a bit of a statement to swallow at first because that means all of us no matter how evil we have been on earth would be saved. Can you live with that? I can, but it has taken me years to get there and it is only through some pretty deep reflection about my own sinfulness and how God could save me and trying to understand where is the line that you have to cross to not be saved that I have been able to come to this place. I am hopeful there is no line, because if there is I can’t defend myself to be on the saving side. Grace and peace be unto all of you. Steve

One More Thing

I forgot to tell you about a paper that we have to do for Confessions class this semester. Jason and I are going to write on the subject of "The Requirement of Baptism for Salvation." One of us is going to take the side that it is not required for salvation and is therefore a human act or work. The other will take the opposite view and hopefully refute this approach and prove that it is done out of a requirement of salvation. We are both pretty excited about this approach to our papers. I will let you know how it works out.

Back At It

Back to the rock quarry!


Three mid-terms starting Thursday, then Friday and Monday. Reminds me of finals week. Not my favorite time of the semester. Came back early last week from break to study so I should be ok.

We present and vote on our three suggestions for helping the homeless tomorrow at lunch. I hope we approve all three.

I was also nominated as one of two people from the Junior Class for Student Government next year. We have elections later in the month. I am on the ballot for Treasurer along with another Junior. We will see what God has in mind.

Weather here is beautiful today. 70, sunny, light breeze. Can’t beat it.

May God bless you and keep you safe. May His light so shine upon your face so that you may be a light for others. Amen. May you see God in your life and may you see God in those you meet. Amen.

Home!

I Flew home last night. Went to a place called home. It looked vaguely familiar. I remember where some of the light switches are located. However, I have not forgotten what Debbie and Danielle and Samantha and Blake look like and that is the most important. It felt good to sleep in a bed that wasn’t a twin bed. However, we need to go buy a bed today as this one is beyond shot and Deb can’t sleep in it without hurting her back. So, off to the store today to buy a new bed. It is raining, which is about usual for Columbia lately. We are celebrating Valentine’s day today so I am done with this post and putting my focus where it should be today. God bless you all. Amen.

Passed Greek Test

Holy Spirit come to me.  I put my name on the test and the Holy Spirit took over from there.  I put my trust in and walked with the Spirit.  Thank you Lord.  Amen.

Greek Test Behind Me Now

The first Greek test is history, or was the first history test Greek to me?  Anyway, the first Greek test is done and I am still breathing and the blood is still circulating.  Hopefully we have the test back before we leave Friday for Spring Break.  I think I did good enough to pass, but would like the graded test to prove that out.  I made a lot of progress this last week studying for this test.  The downside to this is that everything else was pushed aside to work on the Greek.  Now I need to catch up on everything else.  Luckily I was caught up before I started the Greek work, so I am not too far behind.  I can finally start looking forward to getting home.  After 7 weeks away, I can't wait.  It would be nice to be home for a week, but that won't allow me to get the study time I need for the History of Christianity and Lutheran Confessions tests the following week.  So, back here after 3 days and hit the books.  This will allow me to totally forget about school for the 3 days I am home and spend time with the family and get to see my home congregation again. 

We have put forth our 3 proposals for helping the homeless here in Columbia.  We will meet as a class to vote on any action after we get back from break.  Here is a cut and paste of the proposals we put forth.  Please realize they are somewhat vague on purpose to get people to attend the meeting.  We have more information that we put forth in the letter, but we want to hold some of it for discussion at the meeting.

PROPOSALS SUBMITTED TO THE JUNIOR CLASS FOR SERVICE PROJECTS


JUNIOR SUBCOMMITTEE ON HOMELESSNESS MISSION

Proposal 1

We propose to develop a program of providing individual boxes of shelf-stable foods to the homeless through the best distribution channel, which is yet to be determined. We are not aware of this type of food being distributed to the homeless through any ministry. The goal is for the homeless to have food that can be kept in their backpacks without need for refrigeration, or the need to be eaten in a matter of hours, such as sandwiches. This is not intended to replace the other food ministries offer, but to give the homeless food for when they can’t get to those ministries. We have identified a list of foods we could offer.

Proposal 2

Focusing on resources available in the group and needs of the homeless we determined that small health kits would be of use. Through some web sites and programs that we can access, we can obtain travel size tubes of toothpaste for free and good toothbrushes at reduced costs. We ask XXXXX to help in obtaining analgesic and vitamin samples through some of his professional web sites. He is willing to do this for the homeless. We would then need to package these supplies in zip lock bags and deliver them to one of the homeless centers here in Columbia.

Proposal 3

There are certain goods needed by local homelessness agencies to enable them to continue their mission. Such goods can be collected by us in a drive. We can do this ether here on campus or in our field parishes. We can determine for ourselves what goods we want to collect in this drive. However, local agencies have expressed need for male underwear (socks, undershirts, and underwear) as well as copy paper.

As a committee member we hope to take on all three of these.  Between our class we are in about 50 field churches.  The ability to raise goods and funds within 50 congregations for a concentrated effort through the seminary in conjunction with the local agencies that serve the homeless everyday has got to have an impact.  I will keep you updated as we progress through this.  The challenge will be selling this to the class and getting everyone to ACT.  There are 10 lists of reasons why we can't do this or don't have the time.  Reality is that it won't take a lot of time if we all contribute and all of these will allow us the ability to schedule things on non-crunch weeks.  I am excited about our proposal and implementing these things.

Back to things; as I have had to put my life in the hands of God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit I ask you to conside the same during this Lenten time.  It is only through knowing that I am not able to do things on my own and intially having to turn to God that I am finally able to look to Him to WANT to do what He wants me to do.  As I have said this Greek class is my Holy Spirit proving ground this semester.  If God wants me to be a Pastor, I am going to pass this Greek class.  There are many other trials in life that with the Holy Spirit we either know that God wants us to accomplish or not and not doesn't mean we are a failure.  Failure is a term we humans put on people to make us feel better about ourselves.  God's can only see us in our inability to be anything but sinners.  He knows that we care not capable of anything but sin.  That is why He sent His Son to save us.  It is not failure in God's eyes when something we try to do doesn't work out.  It means that God has another path for us and we have not found the path that He is leading us along.  This is what is so awesome about being here in this time at this place doing what I am doing.  I am convinced that I am finally aligned with what God wants me to do at this time.  The feeling is incredible, like I have never experienced before.  If you have not stepped out of the boat and on to the water, I can not possible tell you what it is like.  (Translated: If you have never put your life in God's hands you will not know what it is like to do so for I am not aware of another way to describe it), I can only pray that you deepen your faith enough to trust that first step out of the boat on to the water.  It is not about us, I finally figured that out.  It took a lot of pain to get to that point, but He brought me through that time also.  I pray that you are able to see this and find the desire to act on it.  Remember seeing isn't believing, BELIEVING IS SEEING.  God's grace and peace be with you always, Amen.

We ended up getting about 4-6 inches of snow.  Mostly gone after the next day.  It sure was pretty while it lasted.  Enjoy the pictures. 

I think my Holy Spirit challenge this past semester was just getting here and through the first semester after so many years away from academia.  My Holy Spirit challenge this semester is definitely Greek.  At this point I have had to put all hope of passing this class in the Holy Spirit.  I don't see how, but if I am suppossed to be doing this then the Spirit will pull me through some how.  I am just going to remain faithful to the process and let it work.  We have a test next week, so let's see what happens.  I might have passed the quiz last night but then I might not have also.  At least I didn't know for sure that I flunked it right after I took it.  PROGRESS!

I sure am missing home and my family.  I get to come home for a few days next week.  By the time I get home it will have been 7 weeks since I saw them.  That is too long!  We have to do something different when we have such long stretches between breaks.  I am looking into possibly moving to a school in Florida next year and transfering the credits back for next year only.  That would allow me to be closer to home and probably home most weekends.   I don't know that we can get through another year and a half of being this far apart for this long.  This semester is much more challenging than last.  Then again, we didn't have a 7 week stretch last semester either. 

We preached our first sermon for grades yesterday.  Only one more sermon in class and then one in our field congregation.  They have asked that we not preach until we get into the preaching class and I have not preached since I got here.  I am trying to honor the process.  Holy Spirit help me!  The sermon went well.  The real challenges to this sermon vs. others that I have preached is the process we had to go through to develop the sermon or what is called the "Exegesis".  Obviously there is a much more formal process than I am used to.  The other major challenge was that we have so many students in our class we were limited to 7 minutes.  This is timed and we are told thank you, that's enough, if we went over.  No pressure there.  My sermon started at 1050 words.  With my more paced way of preaching I ended up having to pare it down to 850 words.  Have you ever tried to cut 20% out of something you were presenting?  It is not easy and you start examing the role of every word in the text and let the red ink fly.  I got it done and came in right at 7 minutes.  I am preaching in my field congregation on Easter 5 weekend, but I am also filling in for Pastor the Sunday after Easter while he is on vacation.  Never hurts to get a little more practice. 

All for now.  May the Holy Spirit be active in your life!  God bless, Steve

Let is Snow, let it snow, let it snow. . . . .

Yes, they are forecasting snow here starting late this afternoon and going into tonight.  2-3 inches.  I have not been where it was snowing in the last few years.  I am looking forward to it.  I only have to walk to work on Saturday afternoon, so no big deal with that.  Have a blessed day! Steve

I think I can see a bit of letting up in a couple of weeks.  I preach my first sermon for preaching class next week and after that there may be a breath.  I have the rough draft written so things are progressing as they need to.  Tuesdays are a bear with class starting at 8:30 am and Greek ending at 8:30 pm.  Long day.  Thursdays will get better this week as we don't have our 8:30 am class for about 6 weeks.  This class is shared with the Middlers so neither class goes every week.  I am not too sure what will happen in Greek.  I have flunked the last two quizes after getting an A in the Fall semester.  The focus of the quizes is different with this teacher and it focuses on my weakness the translations.  Of course, the goal is to be able to translate.  Having been an engineering major it seems like I am learning a foriegn language with a foriegn language.  The named parts of sentences and all that terribly english stuff are the other foriegn language to me.  Another thing that isn't helping right now is that I have been away from home for 5 weeks with two more to go before I get home for three days.  Our break is longer than that, but we have test in History and Lutheran Confessions when we get back and these are two classes I can't wait until the last minute to study. 

We are working as the Junior Class on something we can do for the homeless here in Columbia.  We meet again this morning to go over what we have found.  I have been too busy with school to get my part of the research done.  I am not happy about that, but have not had a choice.  I am passionate about this subject, especially after my Cross Cultural experience in Atlanta.  That shows you how busy the homework has been.

They say we have a slight chance of snow on Friday night.  That would be great timing.  I hope it does snow....and then melts the next morning. :)

This is all I have time for right now.  Back to flash cards for Greek.  A couple of Bible Trivia questions:
1.  According to Paul who take away the "veil" over the Old Testament?
2.  What is the only gospel to mention Jesus' riding on a donkey?

Answers:
1.  Christ
2.  Matthew
God bless you!

Quick One

The homework load has started off about triple last semester with a library full of reading assigned.  The break was no fried to my Greek.  I flunked the quiz last night.  Different teacher that teaches and tests in a different way.  The first one tested to my strength.  This one tests to my weakness.  I know what I need to do but it is not going to be fun or easy.  (who ever said this would be?)  I will try to get on at least once a week to update how things are going.  On another note we as the Junior Class are working on an outreach project to see how we can help the homeless here in Columbia.  I am on the committee to determine what we will propose to the class for approval.  This falls right in with my trip to Atlanta in January and my groups video project last semester.  The one thing I learned in January is if you want to help someone or a group ask them what they need.  We had people yesterday that were halfway to the kitchen to start making sandwiches to hand out.  Who wouldn't want a sandwich right?  Well, the homeless people we have talked to here in Columbia say they have enough food and clothes.  They have other needs.  We will ask them again and come up with a game plan.  I will keep you posted.  God bless all of you.  May you see God in your lives and in each other.  Steve

Awake at 3:50am, up at 4:50am. Things that wake me up.

We started Intro to Preaching class yesterday.  This is going to be a great class.  We are already contemplating our first sermon to preach the middle of February.  This contemplation has things revealed to me in my head at the strangest times.  Below are some from early this morning:

If God is God with a big G then the God of the Israelites must be the God of all. For the God of all creation must also be my God and your God, as I am part of creation as are you. He is our creator. He must have created all of us for He spoke and all of creation came to be. And if our God is a triune God then His Son Jesus Christ is God also and he walked among us. He walked among us to save us. As Moses saved the Israelites from the slavery of the Egyptians, Jesus saved us from the slavery of sin. As Moses led his people through the wilderness to the land of Canaan so Jesus is leading us to the land of His Father. Is satan personified in pharaoh? Is he not willing to give us up? Is he chasing after us to bring us back to the captivity/slavery of sin? Is Jesus leading us to the Red Sea so that we may pass through the sea of the blood of the lamb? Our ultimate redemption is in that blood. Is satan going to drown in the blood of the lamb? Will the blood of the lamb redeem satan also? "For the love of Christ urges us on, because we are convinced that one has died for all, therfore all have died.  And He died for all, so that those who live might live no longer for themselves, but for him who died and was raised for them." 2 Cor 5:14-15

Next thing:


Times seems to progress in speed as we get older. Imagine if you were more than 4.5 billion years old (according to scientists the earth is roughly 4.5 billion years old.) How fast would time progress? There has been an idea floated about that for God time travels at the speed of light. A second to Him is an eternity to us. So if this is true how long is seven days? How long is 1000 years? We seek to put everything about God in terms we can understand. Each year does He bring us a little closer to His time progression?  I expect that when we meet our creator, our redeemer, we will find that there is nothing about God that can be explained by our limited human thinking, including the relationship of the progression of time. Maybe in our spiritual realm we will have a better concept of time as it relates to our creator.

We are starting to get into the Reformation in History and we start Lutheran Confessions tomorrow.  Many of us are excited to be getting into some "meat" rather than just building backgrounds and foundations, which are necessary but not all that fun.  We are starting to get into the fun.  2nd semester in, actually that is pretty quick I guess. 
 
Down to 30 degrees this morning, since I was up so early I went and worked out.  COLD outside.  Forecast is 26 for a low Sunday morning.  Have a blessed day.  Steve

Spring Semester About to Begin

Well, back at school. The 3 weeks at home were good to catch up with everyone and to get down to Miami to see Christ the King church (they are a Seminarian partnership church of the seminary and they help support our education for 4 of us from FL with funds from their annual Yard Sale. By the way, they must have one huge yard sale given what they take in over a weekend). I was able to get some work done around the house for when we move. The garage is almost clean. Given when we moved in you could not even walk into the garage I think a lot of progress has been made.


The 10 days in Atlanta and the Urban immersion were very eye opening and fruitful. I learned two core things. If you think someone is different than you, not as deserving, not as important, not as blessed, get to know them and then detail why you think they are different. Getting to know people brings down barriers and we see that each of us is a child of God. As such we are called to do what we can to help that child of God thrive, not just survive. The second thing is that rather than determine your ministries inside the church or in the Council, go out and knock on doors. Ask the community that your church is in what they need. Go build your ministry on the responses you get. There will be a real verified need and where that is the case I am sure the Lord will bless you with the resources to do the ministry. When this happens the ministry is to God’s children, exactly where our ministry should be.

We also got to stay with homeless people 6 nights (most of us don’t want to know how close we could be to losing our homes), we went to the symphony for MLK celebration, we went to Ebenezer Baptist (MLK’s home church) for the celebration service (2 hours) and it was great, that pastor can preach, we met with advocacy lawyers, church coalition group, Faith and the City, the Korean Lutheran Church and stayed with some of their students and ate seaweed soup for breakfast, stayed with City of Refuge and worked there for a day (www.cityofrefugeinc.com )check it out, we went to the Lutheran MLK celebration (2-2hour services in one day, wow), we met with Lutheran Services of Georgia about their refugee resettlement, we worked with LSG on MLK day with about 80 volunteers to break down 4 tons of rice into 2 lb bags, we went and helped a suburban church feed over 30 homeless in their neighborhood (there aren’t any homeless in the suburbs!), oh yes there are!, and we stopped by Candler Theological School at Emory and looked at the collection of Lutheran memorabilia including an original indulgence for building St. Peters.

This was quite a week. Seeing how difficult it is to survive once you are down and out and how the system really seems to help keep you there was not easy to see. Once you are homeless, it is really difficult to know what to do, to get any benefits. Did you know that you have to have an address to get benefits? How is that helping the homeless? If you have kids what do you do? There is also a huge population of people that are on the verge of being homeless, but still have an apartment. How do we keep them from falling into the homeless population? How do we help those that are homeless come back out? I know that there are a certain percentage of homeless that want to be that way, but the people we met do not and would do almost anything to get back into society. Then we have the undocumented workers in the country. We give them jobs that we don’t want to do and then we track them down. If we don’t want them here, don’t give them any work and they won’t come. If we are going to allow them to do the jobs that we don’t want then let them stay. Many of them have children that were born in the US and sending the parents out of the country would break the family up. We should not be doing that. What about the refugees that are going to be coming from Haiti? Did you know the Gov’t program for refugee resettlement gives $900 total for an agency to resettle a person? That is everything including apt, furniture, food, and transportation. By the time the apt is furnished and food stocked for them to eat there is less than $100 for them to last 90 days. 90 days is all the longer they stay on the grid. LSG keeps with them for 6 months, but that is still pretty tough in a new country where you don’t know the language or anything about it to be totally up to speed and have a decent job in 6 months is a very aggressive schedule. I don’t know how they do it.

On the family front this semester is starting out much tougher than last semester. Last semester everything seemed to fall into place for me to be here and the family in Sarasota. This semester doesn’t seem to be so easy. For the first time I am not sure that we are going to be able to pull off this me coming up to school and the family staying at home for 2 years. I may need to check into options. Luckily I had some great conversations recently with someone that let me know there is more than one way to accomplish this goal of ordination.

The heat is out in this end of the dorm for about 10 days. It hasn’t gotten too cold in here yet. The other side of the hall still has heat so we are leaving the doors open to allow some of it to head this way. Classes start on Monday.

God bless all of you,
Steve