Sunday, July 16, 2006

Moving concerns

Hello all - I'm about to leave to walk the block or so to preach at Matt's church, but I wanted to ask for your prayers. We've run into a little snag about actually moving down to TN...a member of the PNC is coming up here to get all of our stuff and move it down there probably this weekend (so I'll be calling on those of you in Dbq to help me get it on the truck soon...thanks!), but we don't know when we will be able to go with.
They want me to be down there living before I meet with COM and candidate, which is okay with me, but the problem is that as of right now we wouldn't have a place to live. One of the members has a house that he wants to let us "rent" (for free) for a couple of months while we casually look for a new house, but his daughter's in it right now. She apparently is in the process of moving out, but is doing it very "gradually" as they put it. There's another option of a rental house that we would have to pay for, but apparently someone is in that one as well.
Anyway, they are going to get together today to try to figure this out - and we would covet your prayers in order to do this smoothly and with the least amount of weeks of living without toys...three boys have a remarkable amount of toys... So there ya go.

The "plan" is that we'll move down to TN in the next couple of weeks, and sort of chill out while we look for a new house. The church is going to loan us their manse fund ($45000) for a down payment that we'll pay back when we sell the house. I meet with COM on the 8th of August, have a reception at the church on the 12th, preach on the 13th. My understanding is that they will begin my pay on the 1st, which is strange, but I'm okay with it. I won't be able to meet with presbytery to get ordained until late October, though, since I can't get on the docket for August and they don't meet in September. So the COM came up with the idea that I be what they call a "pastor in waiting" - I'll do the job but won't moderate session or marry anyone or do the sacraments. Annoying, but that's life, I guess.

Well, I gotta go. Peace and grace to you all.
By the way, my e-mail is jgay38@hotmail.com - drop me a note if ya want.

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