Tuesday, November 08, 2005
A couple of weeks again since my last update. I really do not know where the time goes. Since I last wrote, we have had more guests and a hurricane pass through our home here in Port St Lucie(PSL).
After Janice left we had about a week before gary and the group from East Belfast Mission arrived in PSL as part of their awareness raising itineration through the state of Florida and in New York. We were lucky to have the four of them for a couple of days and Margaret and I had the opportunity to catch up with Gary whom we had not seen for a year and also Linda Armitage - a former colleague of mine at EBM. We had not seen Linda in three years. it was amazing to catch up with them both and a real blessing to hear of all the good things that are still going on in EBM. Our church hosted them on Wednesday night and Gary, Linda, Peter Quigley and Susan Bennett gave a great presentation on the history, current work and future vision of East Belfast Mission. The people of our church were thoroughly impressed with the whole thing and many have come and spoke to me since about how they enjoyed it. Particularly moved were our youth. in the last year or so, we have experienced them developing a real heart to be Christians that go into the world to be the hands and feet of Jesus, wherever He calls them. many of them felt moved by the inner city work of EBM.
Just after Gary and crew moved on, we started to realise that we were going to be affected in some way by Hurricane Wilma. All the news in the build up to this had us being affected with a category one hurricane and so while we started to prepare for some power outages and inconvenience, we really did not think it was going to be all that bad. our preparations were delayed as the hurricane hovered over Cancun, Mexico for a couple of days where it had hit as a category four. I cannot even begin to imagine the devastation in cancun after Wilma battered the area there for two straight days. In the middle of our preparations came the arrival of Frances and Wilson (Margaret's sister and brother in law). they arrived into Miami on the Sunday and the hurricane hit us during the day on Monday. When it finally arrived over us it was a high category two storm and again Port St Lucie got pretty well battered by a hurricane. Sunday night was spent checking out all the chocolate Frances had brought us and then Monday was spent eating it as we had not much else to do (except open the door periodically to watch the storm) The worst part of it all for us was the fact that we have had a very wet summer and so as the rain came with the hurricane it had nowhere to drain. The road outside our house was flooded with 8-12 inches of rain water by the time it was all said and done. The water was so deep in places that we were afraid to drive through it as we did the "after storm tour" of the community to see how others had faired.
This was, as you can imagine, a great start to Frances and Wilson's trip and to top it off we were out of power for about 36 hours after the storm (believe me, it could have been a lot worse) Beyond this highlight, it was just good to have them both here again and for another member of our family to meet Eva. I think it is fair to say that they were both impressed with how 'good' a child Eva really is. It was a great chance to catch up also with Wilson. Wilson became a Christian in the summer of 2004 and so this was the first chance I had had to really ask him how it all was and so on a courtesy seat in Walmart - of all places - Wilson gave me a wee bit of insight into how his life with Jesus has been in the last 15 months or so. I must say I was honoured and blessed to be able to listen to what has been going on in his heart over that time and my prayers are that as life regains 'normalcy' for them both that he will continue to grow in his journey.
Yesterday, I had my first real moment of doubt about the whole moving home thing. Well, it wa snot a real doubt, just a moment of regret/sadness/doubt/fear. I encountered some of the youth from our group and I don't completely remember where or why I was talking to them but I can remember coming away from it feeling that I am seriously going to miss them all sooooo much more than I can imagine. Over the last three years, this bunch of teenagers have captured the hearts of Margaret and myself in a way that my words will never do justice to. We have watched them grow in wisdom, love, faith and stature in our church and community and to now think about leaving that is simply crushing. We still know that this is the right 'next step' fopr us but it is getting harder and harder as we make more and more arrangements for our journey home.
This last week I had somewhat of a revelation in ym own journey. Maybe it is the 8/9 week stretch of visitors we have had or maybe it is the stress of work or a healthy mixture of both - but one night last week I was talking to margaret and got to tell her something that had been on my mind in recent days. I had really been feeling dry for a number of weeks - that I was in this faith walk and I had absolutely no idea where it was going or even why I was still on it; that I was in this job which is meant to be filled with purpose and direction and I had completely no clue whatr was happening in it. For a number of weeks I have been winging it, flying by the seat of my pants or making it up as I went along and really not thinking about what I have been doing to the detriment of my own spirituality and my work. Last week as I started to realise this I was able to talk it through with Margaret a bit and start the journey to recovery. It dawned on me that I was making my life and my choices more and more about me than about others and what I believed I was hearing from God. Isn't it so easy to get ourselves into that wee hole where there is nothing else in life but us and our concerns? isn't is so easy to make this existence we have about 'me, me, me' than to make it about anyone or anything else? Yes it is. We love to look after number one and trust that everyone else is doing the same and really not worry about how good or bad a job they are doing of that. It is so easy for us to slip into complete carelesness and I guess that is where I found my own life and story in the last couple of weeks. I saw myself getting flippant about decisions and even more laid back than normal about responsibilities, thinking things to myself like, "I don't care, I am out of here in a few months!" It is so easy to get ourselves into that place. Anywho, my revelation came as I started to wonder why I was feeling so empty and down about everything and started to realize the faults and selfishness of my own thinking. And so I write this with a renewed heart for life and calling. i write this and truly mean it when I say that the next four months are not about winding down but rather about building up and finishing strong. Pray for Margaretr and myself as we continue this journey and make the arrangements for our next step.
As we continue to build up in our youth ministry we have a number of things coming up. The first happens a week on Friday when I will be taking a small group of youth to the Alabama coast which was wrecked by hurricane Katrina, to do some relief work. It is an exciting prospect to take a group on this trip and share one more missional experience with this group that is so pumped to serve others. Beyond this trip we have Operation Christmas Child (www.samaritanspurse.org) that we will become involved in and all the good stuff that happens for Thanksgiving and christmas in this neck of the woods.
One more exciting thing is that margaret and I have tickets to see U2 in Miami this night next week. i am sure I will fill you in on that when I next blog. For now though enjoy some pictures and leave me loads of comments.
Blessings
After Janice left we had about a week before gary and the group from East Belfast Mission arrived in PSL as part of their awareness raising itineration through the state of Florida and in New York. We were lucky to have the four of them for a couple of days and Margaret and I had the opportunity to catch up with Gary whom we had not seen for a year and also Linda Armitage - a former colleague of mine at EBM. We had not seen Linda in three years. it was amazing to catch up with them both and a real blessing to hear of all the good things that are still going on in EBM. Our church hosted them on Wednesday night and Gary, Linda, Peter Quigley and Susan Bennett gave a great presentation on the history, current work and future vision of East Belfast Mission. The people of our church were thoroughly impressed with the whole thing and many have come and spoke to me since about how they enjoyed it. Particularly moved were our youth. in the last year or so, we have experienced them developing a real heart to be Christians that go into the world to be the hands and feet of Jesus, wherever He calls them. many of them felt moved by the inner city work of EBM.
Just after Gary and crew moved on, we started to realise that we were going to be affected in some way by Hurricane Wilma. All the news in the build up to this had us being affected with a category one hurricane and so while we started to prepare for some power outages and inconvenience, we really did not think it was going to be all that bad. our preparations were delayed as the hurricane hovered over Cancun, Mexico for a couple of days where it had hit as a category four. I cannot even begin to imagine the devastation in cancun after Wilma battered the area there for two straight days. In the middle of our preparations came the arrival of Frances and Wilson (Margaret's sister and brother in law). they arrived into Miami on the Sunday and the hurricane hit us during the day on Monday. When it finally arrived over us it was a high category two storm and again Port St Lucie got pretty well battered by a hurricane. Sunday night was spent checking out all the chocolate Frances had brought us and then Monday was spent eating it as we had not much else to do (except open the door periodically to watch the storm) The worst part of it all for us was the fact that we have had a very wet summer and so as the rain came with the hurricane it had nowhere to drain. The road outside our house was flooded with 8-12 inches of rain water by the time it was all said and done. The water was so deep in places that we were afraid to drive through it as we did the "after storm tour" of the community to see how others had faired.
This was, as you can imagine, a great start to Frances and Wilson's trip and to top it off we were out of power for about 36 hours after the storm (believe me, it could have been a lot worse) Beyond this highlight, it was just good to have them both here again and for another member of our family to meet Eva. I think it is fair to say that they were both impressed with how 'good' a child Eva really is. It was a great chance to catch up also with Wilson. Wilson became a Christian in the summer of 2004 and so this was the first chance I had had to really ask him how it all was and so on a courtesy seat in Walmart - of all places - Wilson gave me a wee bit of insight into how his life with Jesus has been in the last 15 months or so. I must say I was honoured and blessed to be able to listen to what has been going on in his heart over that time and my prayers are that as life regains 'normalcy' for them both that he will continue to grow in his journey.
Yesterday, I had my first real moment of doubt about the whole moving home thing. Well, it wa snot a real doubt, just a moment of regret/sadness/doubt/fear. I encountered some of the youth from our group and I don't completely remember where or why I was talking to them but I can remember coming away from it feeling that I am seriously going to miss them all sooooo much more than I can imagine. Over the last three years, this bunch of teenagers have captured the hearts of Margaret and myself in a way that my words will never do justice to. We have watched them grow in wisdom, love, faith and stature in our church and community and to now think about leaving that is simply crushing. We still know that this is the right 'next step' fopr us but it is getting harder and harder as we make more and more arrangements for our journey home.
This last week I had somewhat of a revelation in ym own journey. Maybe it is the 8/9 week stretch of visitors we have had or maybe it is the stress of work or a healthy mixture of both - but one night last week I was talking to margaret and got to tell her something that had been on my mind in recent days. I had really been feeling dry for a number of weeks - that I was in this faith walk and I had absolutely no idea where it was going or even why I was still on it; that I was in this job which is meant to be filled with purpose and direction and I had completely no clue whatr was happening in it. For a number of weeks I have been winging it, flying by the seat of my pants or making it up as I went along and really not thinking about what I have been doing to the detriment of my own spirituality and my work. Last week as I started to realise this I was able to talk it through with Margaret a bit and start the journey to recovery. It dawned on me that I was making my life and my choices more and more about me than about others and what I believed I was hearing from God. Isn't it so easy to get ourselves into that wee hole where there is nothing else in life but us and our concerns? isn't is so easy to make this existence we have about 'me, me, me' than to make it about anyone or anything else? Yes it is. We love to look after number one and trust that everyone else is doing the same and really not worry about how good or bad a job they are doing of that. It is so easy for us to slip into complete carelesness and I guess that is where I found my own life and story in the last couple of weeks. I saw myself getting flippant about decisions and even more laid back than normal about responsibilities, thinking things to myself like, "I don't care, I am out of here in a few months!" It is so easy to get ourselves into that place. Anywho, my revelation came as I started to wonder why I was feeling so empty and down about everything and started to realize the faults and selfishness of my own thinking. And so I write this with a renewed heart for life and calling. i write this and truly mean it when I say that the next four months are not about winding down but rather about building up and finishing strong. Pray for Margaretr and myself as we continue this journey and make the arrangements for our next step.
As we continue to build up in our youth ministry we have a number of things coming up. The first happens a week on Friday when I will be taking a small group of youth to the Alabama coast which was wrecked by hurricane Katrina, to do some relief work. It is an exciting prospect to take a group on this trip and share one more missional experience with this group that is so pumped to serve others. Beyond this trip we have Operation Christmas Child (www.samaritanspurse.org) that we will become involved in and all the good stuff that happens for Thanksgiving and christmas in this neck of the woods.
One more exciting thing is that margaret and I have tickets to see U2 in Miami this night next week. i am sure I will fill you in on that when I next blog. For now though enjoy some pictures and leave me loads of comments.
Blessings
Saturday, October 22, 2005
A few weeks since my last update. I used to be so good at getting to write every week but the last 8/9 weeks have been so bloody busy with family/work and visitors that I have hardly had a chance to get any writing done at all.
Since Mum and Dad left we have had another few visitors. Margaret's sister Janice came the day before Mum and Dad left and spent ten days in our company. She is the first person after Glenn from Margaret's family to meet Eva and get to spend time with her. They got on famously as Janice held her and talked with her and sang to her - Margaret and I also got to spend some time out with just each other for the first time since Eva was born. It was nice but we did not stay out too long as we did not want to leave her for longer or have Janice put under the pressure of keeping her for too long. While Janice was here I took her to every boys favourite store - Best Buy. Best Buy is the place you go to check out all the latest in gadgetry - you name it they have it in terms of personal electronics and they have a class selection of DVD's with everything you could ever want to buy. The shop really is simply a building of pure temptation to spend money on stuff you don't really need!!!!!! Anywho, I took Janice there because she arrived in Florida with a desire to catch up with the 21st century and purchase both a digital camera and an MP3 - we went, we saw and she bought. I have to say I was thoroughly impressed with her as she did not dilly dally around with the purchasing of things - she saw what she wanted and she bought - we were in and out in about 15 mins. Admittedly - as a guys who loves perusing gadgets I would have liked more time in there but to have a woman go in and get the stuff and come out was just a dream come true. Well done Janice and I hope you are using and enjoying your purchases.
I was noticing the other day as I looked through some the comments from my readers that people have been amazed that there has been nothing about rugby recently. Well I am about to break that one. Last Saturday I made my first rugby outing of the season. Things have been so busy here that I have not had the chance to engage with the rugby club as much as I would have wanted to. However, the Pirates (www.piratesrugby.com) had a home game on Saturday and I was able to play as it was a late afternoon kick off. So I made it out to practice on the Thursday before and then turned up for the game on Saturday. I have now been playing for the Pirates for a couple of years and have only won one game with them until last Saturday when we won again. We were playing the students of FAU and I have tio say I just really enjoyed the whole thing. Recovery from the games and practice takes a lot longer these days (especially when I play in the front row!!!) but it is still worth it. I am excited to come home in March and start with the Hinch again next season - social rugby at its best!!!!! We scored three tries against the students and I got all of them - a feat of which I am quite proud. All three tries where extremely satisfying as they were the type of tries where I got to run at and through the opposition. As a coach, I teach kids that rugby is a game were we try to evade the opposition and not run into them, but as a player (a 6'5 300lbs player!!!) it is still extremely cool to steamroller your way through people!!!! The Pirates are a struggling wee club here in Florida and it was a good day for us. There are not a huge number of us but we love to play the game and last Saturday proved that.
The other main part of life this month has been the pumpkin patch at church. I had forgotten how much it really takes over your life for a month. Sales have been extremely good for us and we have sold over $9000 dollars worth of pumkins in three weeks. It takes a lot of work and effort but it really is worth it in the end. The end though has come prematurely as the threat of hurricane Wilma looms over us. It is felt that our pumpkins will make excellent hurricane missiles if we leave them out in the open and so this weekend we are doing the great hurricane give away where people can come and take a pumpkin and drop off a donation to us in the coming days. It is a bit of an anti climax to it all but makes our life a lot easier when there are less pumpkins for us to clean up tomorrow morning before the storm arrives.
Wilma should arrive tomorrow night or Monday morning. To be honest the threat of anything severe does not seem to be too major. She has hovered over Cancun, Mexico for a long time and really devastated that area and now she should be on her way over Cuba to Florida. We are on the East coast of Florida and so should not get anything too rough - but, as always with these things, we have to be prepared. The over-riding theme of this years hurricanes has been unpredictability. Weather watchers have been okay at tracking them but would even say themselves that they have never seen storms like these in terms of how they have moved and turned as they make their journey to land. And so, with Wilma, we have an idea what it might be like but really don't know. This morning I put up our hurricane shutters and we have stocked up on baby food and water and some other food items. We have enough to get us through anything tough that comes our way.
Eva continues to grow and is currently somewhere between 22 and 23lbs. I saw an 18 month old wee girl the other day and I could not believe that she was only just a bit bigger than what Eva is. It really is unbelievable how she is growing. Now she responds when we call her name and she is all biz everywhere we go. She love interacting with people and always gives them a smile as they chat with her. She is also working out that her hands are for grabbing things like my glasses. I stupidly have this belief that when I say she should not touch them that she will miraculously understand me and leave them alone - you know me, ever the optimist. But alas, she has not yet come to understand what I am saying.
Eva's new BFF was born two days ago. Ron and Jen had a wee baby girl called Katherine (Kate) Lynn Buchmeyer and she weighed in at 6lbs 13ozs. You can imagine the comments we have made about Eva looking more like her big sister than her five month old friend. She is a healthy wee baby girl with a huge head of black hair. She was born by cesarian and Mum is in pain but doing well. I will post some pics of Kate soon.
Thats about it for now. We have Margaret's sister and brother in law Frances and Wilson arriving tomorrow to sit out the hurricane with us which will be fun for us and I am sure different for them. I am sure we will all make the best of it.
Check out our pictures!!!!
Blessings
Since Mum and Dad left we have had another few visitors. Margaret's sister Janice came the day before Mum and Dad left and spent ten days in our company. She is the first person after Glenn from Margaret's family to meet Eva and get to spend time with her. They got on famously as Janice held her and talked with her and sang to her - Margaret and I also got to spend some time out with just each other for the first time since Eva was born. It was nice but we did not stay out too long as we did not want to leave her for longer or have Janice put under the pressure of keeping her for too long. While Janice was here I took her to every boys favourite store - Best Buy. Best Buy is the place you go to check out all the latest in gadgetry - you name it they have it in terms of personal electronics and they have a class selection of DVD's with everything you could ever want to buy. The shop really is simply a building of pure temptation to spend money on stuff you don't really need!!!!!! Anywho, I took Janice there because she arrived in Florida with a desire to catch up with the 21st century and purchase both a digital camera and an MP3 - we went, we saw and she bought. I have to say I was thoroughly impressed with her as she did not dilly dally around with the purchasing of things - she saw what she wanted and she bought - we were in and out in about 15 mins. Admittedly - as a guys who loves perusing gadgets I would have liked more time in there but to have a woman go in and get the stuff and come out was just a dream come true. Well done Janice and I hope you are using and enjoying your purchases.
I was noticing the other day as I looked through some the comments from my readers that people have been amazed that there has been nothing about rugby recently. Well I am about to break that one. Last Saturday I made my first rugby outing of the season. Things have been so busy here that I have not had the chance to engage with the rugby club as much as I would have wanted to. However, the Pirates (www.piratesrugby.com) had a home game on Saturday and I was able to play as it was a late afternoon kick off. So I made it out to practice on the Thursday before and then turned up for the game on Saturday. I have now been playing for the Pirates for a couple of years and have only won one game with them until last Saturday when we won again. We were playing the students of FAU and I have tio say I just really enjoyed the whole thing. Recovery from the games and practice takes a lot longer these days (especially when I play in the front row!!!) but it is still worth it. I am excited to come home in March and start with the Hinch again next season - social rugby at its best!!!!! We scored three tries against the students and I got all of them - a feat of which I am quite proud. All three tries where extremely satisfying as they were the type of tries where I got to run at and through the opposition. As a coach, I teach kids that rugby is a game were we try to evade the opposition and not run into them, but as a player (a 6'5 300lbs player!!!) it is still extremely cool to steamroller your way through people!!!! The Pirates are a struggling wee club here in Florida and it was a good day for us. There are not a huge number of us but we love to play the game and last Saturday proved that.
The other main part of life this month has been the pumpkin patch at church. I had forgotten how much it really takes over your life for a month. Sales have been extremely good for us and we have sold over $9000 dollars worth of pumkins in three weeks. It takes a lot of work and effort but it really is worth it in the end. The end though has come prematurely as the threat of hurricane Wilma looms over us. It is felt that our pumpkins will make excellent hurricane missiles if we leave them out in the open and so this weekend we are doing the great hurricane give away where people can come and take a pumpkin and drop off a donation to us in the coming days. It is a bit of an anti climax to it all but makes our life a lot easier when there are less pumpkins for us to clean up tomorrow morning before the storm arrives.
Wilma should arrive tomorrow night or Monday morning. To be honest the threat of anything severe does not seem to be too major. She has hovered over Cancun, Mexico for a long time and really devastated that area and now she should be on her way over Cuba to Florida. We are on the East coast of Florida and so should not get anything too rough - but, as always with these things, we have to be prepared. The over-riding theme of this years hurricanes has been unpredictability. Weather watchers have been okay at tracking them but would even say themselves that they have never seen storms like these in terms of how they have moved and turned as they make their journey to land. And so, with Wilma, we have an idea what it might be like but really don't know. This morning I put up our hurricane shutters and we have stocked up on baby food and water and some other food items. We have enough to get us through anything tough that comes our way.
Eva continues to grow and is currently somewhere between 22 and 23lbs. I saw an 18 month old wee girl the other day and I could not believe that she was only just a bit bigger than what Eva is. It really is unbelievable how she is growing. Now she responds when we call her name and she is all biz everywhere we go. She love interacting with people and always gives them a smile as they chat with her. She is also working out that her hands are for grabbing things like my glasses. I stupidly have this belief that when I say she should not touch them that she will miraculously understand me and leave them alone - you know me, ever the optimist. But alas, she has not yet come to understand what I am saying.
Eva's new BFF was born two days ago. Ron and Jen had a wee baby girl called Katherine (Kate) Lynn Buchmeyer and she weighed in at 6lbs 13ozs. You can imagine the comments we have made about Eva looking more like her big sister than her five month old friend. She is a healthy wee baby girl with a huge head of black hair. She was born by cesarian and Mum is in pain but doing well. I will post some pics of Kate soon.
Thats about it for now. We have Margaret's sister and brother in law Frances and Wilson arriving tomorrow to sit out the hurricane with us which will be fun for us and I am sure different for them. I am sure we will all make the best of it.
Check out our pictures!!!!
Blessings
Monday, October 10, 2005
Friday, October 07, 2005
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