October 8-14

This week has been filled with many ups and downs...

The ups:

• Tuesday night was the first "guitar" class at St. Luke's! Ken and I led it together for anyone interested in learning guitar, singing, basic rhythm (using egg shakers) and singing harmonies. There was a good turnout - about five people came. This class will meet fortnightly, and hopefully after a year or so, there will be 5-10 people in the congregation who are better trained musically to filter into worship teams!
• I was able to lead "The Bass Line" devotions with Trinity's new team, the Tuesday team, the Thursday team, and the youth team! It was awesome to see how different each team responded to the Word, how they applied the questions to their life/music ministry, etc. I believe over time, this will be a great way to shape each team and mold their attitudes to that of Christ as they explore through monthly devotions what it means to be a music ministry team.
• Ken is on top of the world, as he has completed all plans and projects for October and is getting a head start on brainstorming his work for November! He loves being ahead of the game like this.
• This Friday night was the youth team's first meeting: we lead worship December 2 and it was awesome to explain Advent, read the Bible readings for that lectionary date, and discuss ideas for how the service will look. The church in the past hasn't always enjoyed this service, but our goal is to create a worship service that edifies the congregation and the youth at the same time!
• Saturday morning Ken and I went to the Satherley's farm to feed their piglets! We then went to Calf and Lamb day where we watched Josh and James with their calf and lamb win 1st and 2nd place! Woohoo! That evening we had a great dinner with Kate and Damien - it was good to hang out with them and play some Cranium (we won!) We really enjoy their company and look forward to getting to know them even better.

Mr. Pig

Baby pigs

Ken feeding Mr. and Mrs. Pig

Me, communicating with the pigs

James and Bubbles

Josh and Marge

• Sunday after church was the first confirmation class that Ken's been writing these past few weeks called "Plug In." It was co-led by Pastor and Ken, and will incorporate a lot of technology for this generation including online blogging, texting, etc. Pastor will be exploring worship while Ken will be teaching the basics of the catechism as well as faith integration. Between the two, these youth should get a firm understanding of Christian faith and Lutheran doctrine and how it affects their every-day lives.
• Trinity worship service Sunday evening was a great success! Thank you for your prayers - the live music ran well, quite a few BLAST kids returned with their families to lead two songs and a short skit, and there was a slide show of the BLAST week.

The downs:

• Both Ken and I have run into issues with certain people in lay leadership positions at the church. Please pray for wisdom and discernment as we continue to work relationally and spiritually with them.
• The weather wasn't so great on Monday so we couldn't go hiking. But the wind has definitely proven to be fun - our house feels like there's a "big bad wolf" outside huffing and puffing to blow it down! The doors in our home move and creek when the wind gets going! They call it the "equinoctial October winds"
• We STILL don't have our boxes that shipped out from CA in June! Please pray as we deal with the moving company and try to get our boxes from Auckland to us during this next week so we can have some gear we need by next Monday!
• We're both missing our families back in the states...including our pets

Overall:

• On Sunday, Pastor Greg had an awesome sermon about the blessings of giving thanks. Even though above, we went through the positives and negatives of our week, we always have something we can be thankful for. Looking at the parable of the ten healed lepers in Luke 17, there were a few interesting things that stood out to us: first off, the lepers as a group of people had a common faith - that Jesus could heal them. second, they asked for the free gift of healing, knowing they had nothing to give Jesus back in return. third, they exercised their faith by going as Jesus said, even though they were not healed as they left Him. But this is where things changed. Nine of them were probably Jews, and therefore after being healed went into the Temple to worship. However, the one Samaritan, had to no where to go after being healed. Therefore he went back to give thanks to Christ, to where he knew God was. In doing so, he was blessed even more than the others for he was given eternal salvation for Christ says to him: "rise and go your way, your faith has made you well." Faith in Jesus = eternal life. This free gift was given to him as a blessing through his faithfulness. How awesome is that! That in our thanks to God, we deepen our relationship with Him. So yes, although there were some rough spots in our week, we are continually thankful to God for everything He does for us, both in this temporal life and for our eternal life.