Weekend Recap

As usual, here's the story of my weekend...

Friday evening our small group had planned to meet and do something fun, since we typically meet on the 1st and 3rd Fridays of the month but the 1st Friday of July is the night before the 4th so a lot of people had plans.  The guy who regularly leads the Bible study was out of town last weekend, so at the suggestion of another friend a bunch of us went to a worship gathering at a campground near Upper Sandusky.  The gathering was put on by our friend Jason who runs the Worldview Warriors ministry and his sister Rebecca who's on tourfor these worship gatherings.  It was a totally awesome night - the weather was great, and almost a little chilly toward the end of the evening.  Rebecca's music was wonderful and very Spirit-filled.  Jason's message was powerful and covered a few different topics that I know some of us really needed to hear, with a bunch of visuals to reinforce his points.  And no, I'm not just being nice because Jason reads my blog - it really was awesome! :-)

Saturday morning we slept late, and I had to wake Bill up so he would make it to work by noon!  I spent the afternoon and evening doing laundry and homework - one of my "homework hermit" days where that's pretty much all I do.  I did leave the house to go to dinner with Bill on his break though - he had another $10 off Applebee's coupon that needed used, so our entire meal with tip was like $13, for an appetizer and 2 entrees, gotta love that!  I got a bunch of work done on some projects for Christian Worship class, plus some Hebrew translation for Prophets class this week.  I also got in touch with my friend Kurt whom I hadn't talked to in way too long, our former pastor from the Toledo area.  One of the projects for Christian Worship involves designing worship services, one of which is for a "special" service.  I chose Pentecost for that one, since I remembered an awesome skit Kurt did back when we attended there.  So I called him to ask for it and we yakked for nearly an hour, but it was cool to talk to him again.

Sunday morning Bill and I went to church at St. Mark Lutheran in Ada where we went during college.  Part of the motivation for going there was to fulfill another Christian Worship assignment, which is to attend a church I don't normally attend then write a paper on it.  The other part of the motivation was to go there and see the people again, since we had only gone back once in the last 6 years.  I'm amazed at how little things change there!  The congregation seemed smaller, though that could be because it's summer, but otherwise little had changed.  I was also totally amazed that nearly everyone remembered us!  After not seeing us for 6 years I think that's impressive, and it just shows what kind of community they are there.  It's so different than St. Michael LCMC where we went north of Toledo for a while; there they'd hardly remember you the next week, and nobody seemed to care if they knew us or not.  But at St. Mark we really felt welcomed.  One couple, Mark and Julie, even invited us to their house afterward and then took us to lunch.  I had stayed at their house for a week back in 2001 when I helped with St. Mark's week-long VBS program, and we still exchange Christmas cards with them.  It was really cool to chat with them again, and they were thrilled to see us too!  We decided they could easily be like another set of grandparents for us.

We got home mid-afternoon on Sunday, and Bill went to a friend's house to work on a project for church next Sunday.  I attempted to spend some time on homework but decided to be social instead - I called and talked to my mom for a while, and also my friend Karen.  I did get part of my paper written on St. Mark's service though.

Sunday evening Bill's mom and sisters came to Findlay so we could all go out to eat for Susan's birthday.  Her birthday isn't until Thursday, but with all our wacky schedules last night was the only time we could do it.  We went to Cheddar's, which was surprisingly busy for a Sunday!  We had to wait a little while for a table, but overall the meal went very well.  We gave her our gift (a gas card since she's hard to buy for), and after the meal we all went home.  After that, Bill got part of the lawn mowed and I washed my car because she was pretty dirty and I'm too cheap to pay $6 for a "real" wash when it's warm out and I can do it myself.

And that, as they say, is the rest of the story... at least until I have something else interesting to blog about. :-)