Merry Christmas

Well, its Christmas day... and I just woke up... and no one else is up! It is nice.

So life has been interesting lately. Pretty good... there have been a few bumps but the past week or so has been good. Hmmmmmm.... so what has happened.....

Well, it has snowed like crazy this week a TON of snow and then it rained yesterday.... I didn't like the rain at all but I was glad it wasn't more snow (we are running out of room on our road and alley... it keeps getting narrower and narrow with every snow ). But the snow has brought about some good things. I got to meet 2 neighbors because one time my car got stuck and a neighbor helped me and then yesterday my neighbor got stuck and I went and helped him.... so it has been good in some ways too.

The hard part has been that we haven't had our van and we have been driving the purple car everywhere.... and seriously, that car is TERRIBLE in the snow. It is so low to the ground it is like a sports car. You know right after a plow comes through how there are little snow mounds across the road? Well, I have been on roads that a 100 cars have driven over the snow mound and taken of the top layer and my car will still bottom out. Its annoying. But soon we will have our van back.

We had a huge problem come up with our van this week. It kept overheating so we took it in to get checked out and guess what..... the head gaskets were leaking..... and they were saying it was going to be $1500 to fix it. So I started to kind of freak out but really just felt a piece about it. It had to have been God because at that price there is no way we could even start to pay for it. I was thinking "What a Christmas present! $1500 in the hole". So anyways I started to call around to different friends and see if they had any ideas on how I could get it cheaper. I called my friend Dave and asked him for ideas and he gave me a few names to call and also said that the church might be able to help out a bit too. So I called around and found a friend of a friend who would do it for $850! That was really good new BUT Catie and I had literally just paid our backed bills so we had almost no money in our account. so I talked to Dave again who had talked to Ken and the board about our situation and they decided that because they could help out and that I could just do some things (audio/video and training) around the church to "pay back" the money! I was really happy. What a blessing. Thank you!

Church has been good lately. Not necessarily the services (although they have been pretty good too) but the people who make the church. And not just because they are helping with the van. It has just felt a lot more family lately. It has been good. Catie and I were just really struggling and there were people who cared enough to talk to us and help us out. It has been good because like I said in one of the past posts... we have been lonely. This convinces me even more about the importance of kinships and convinces me more that people need people. People need people that will hear them and love them. And I have been seeing that lately. In some ways I think being a smaller church will help us rebuild foundational issues that were a part of Lakeshore Vineyard culture... one of those being lack of friendliness. Hopefully being small will help that.

So what else is up.... hmmmm.... I have an interview next week for an Americorps job. It pays not well at all but is almost exactly what I want to be doing right now. As long as I can keep working at Menards it should work out great. It is working with a non-profit called Heights of Hope. It is a ministry focused on connecting with people in the Holland Heights area (mostly the apartment areas that have a lot of trouble). Basically, I get to connect people to each other organize community building events and meet a bunch of new people. I think it will be a stretch but be awesome. I REALLY hope I get the job! And Americorps is a HUGE boost into other non-profit positions... which I am interested in. So be praying that that works out. I need another job right now..... I was just fortunate enough to get to film a wedding last weekend and make a little more money to make our mortgage payment. (But again God is providing... what can I say?)

I think that is all for now. I can't believe everyone is still sleeping and it is 8:15! It is nice but I am hungry and need to do some stuff before we have people over tomorrow!

Merry Christmas!