Basking in the sun

It seems weird to me that I am blogging about the sun? But I just had one of those moments where life was a whole lot sweeter because the sun is out. It seems to change a mood from bad to good, a sour day into a sweet one. I mean really, how can you have a bad day when the sun is finally out after what seems to be months of rain?

Along with the absence of rain today, the trees, grass and flowers all seem to be that much brighter. Some who have allergies may not express these same feelings, sorry. I even took a little walk through our building (here at work), and found a little patch of sun. I stood there basking in the sunshine just like my cat used to do. It felt so nice, warming me to the core!

I really enjoy the sunshine, and I hope that it is sunny where you are too! Don't take this wonderful tool for granted, enjoy it!

Comforts of home

Hey there all you blog readers. I have to apologize for the lack of blogging recently. Yesterday was Tuesday, and I swore it was Thursday. Needless to say, it has already been the longest week of my life.

Reality is starting to set in that we will be moving in about 2 months. We have looked forward to leaving St. Louis for so long, but now that it's almost here I find myself having mixed feelings. First I should clarify that I am more than excited to leave my job here, but with that brings the unknown which can be worrisome especially if you are like me and HATE change. I also am having a hard time realizing that when we move, I have to leave all of my possessions behind. (OK, so maybe you have figured it out that I also tend to over exaggerate?!) Our vicarage apartment is furnished, which is nice, but it hit me the other day that whenever you move, and where ever you go you always have the comfort of home and your own comfortable belongings. I will not quite have that next year and it has sent me into a mood.

We will be traveling to MN this weekend through next week. The main point of the trip is to visit with the outgoing vicar and the pastor at the church where we will be serving next year in Moorhead. Along the way we hope to see our apartment, which hopefully will relieve some of my anxiety, visit with family and friends, enjoy the delightful tastes of the Dome Dog while cheering on the Twins, and much more.

For now I will enjoy the comfort of my home. I hope that you do the same!

Kansas City

Finally

All right, I am FINALLY getting around to writing about our MN Twins weekend in Kansas City!

It already seems like forever ago, but as promised here are the highlights...

Steve and I left on Friday afternoon so that we could make it in time to check in to the hotel before heading to the game. Our hotel was right across the street and was very nice! Unfortunately the weather was not as nice. We put on our Twins gear and started out towards the ball park. Half way there I think that I had wind burn on my face, and I was COLD! We made it just in time for the game from the nose bleed seats. The game was great as we huddled together. Then in about the 8th inning we heard someone yell, "hey, it's snowing!". Low and behold it was snowing tiny little flakes. Not something that two people without proper winter clothing or a blanket want to hear in April. I told Steve that if the game was not over by 10:00pm, I was breaking his rule of never leaving a sporting event early. We ran back to the hotel, and I believe that I had frostbite on my legs.

Soon after we got back to the hotel, our friends Luke and Megan arrived! We love that they drove all the way to catch some games and fun times together!

Saturday was another fantastic day (or just the opposite). We lounged around in a hot tub that later closed due to nastiness and paint chips in the water. We also took a trip to the brand new Bass Pro Shops. We quickly realized that we can't wait to get back to MN so that we can do some fishing. Steve even mentioned that he would like to try hunting. I say more power to him! Maybe I can convince him to shoot birds? We also took in the 2nd win for the Twins that night. We just came a little more prepared! It also snowed that night. (See the slide show for the picture).

We were determined to do some tailgating, since you really can't do that at the dome. So we packed up and headed for the game. We ended up parking next to some people we knew from the seminary, who actually ended up getting their final call in the same district as us. We sat through the cold to enjoy some tailgate grilling. We got into the game to watch Liriano make his first start of the year. (Which doesn't really matter anymore, since he is back in the minors again) This was the worst game out of the three that we saw, but we had awesome seats, and the sun came out!

We had to say our good buys and head our separate ways, but now we will be able to see every twins game on TV from Moorhead, MN!

Enjoy the slide show!

We're going to Hawaii...

Just kidding, not quite Hawaii but Moorhead, MN. Far away from the beach but we could not be happier! We will be at Our Redeemer Lutheran Church in Moorhead, MN. A church of about 535 members and weekly attendance near 300. We have already heard very, very good things about our supervising pastor and his wife from numerous sources. That was our biggest request for our year of internship...a positive place to learn and grow.

The majority of my time will be spent doing campus ministry at the colleges in the surrounding Moorhead/Fargo, ND areas. I believe the two main colleges are the University of Minnesota at Moorhead and Concordia Moorhead. I will be spending about 75% of my time doing ministry at the colleges and 25% doing ministry in the parish. Hopefully, I will have plenty of opportunities to preach, teach, and learn from all the people of the parish. My time at the colleges seems to be to primarily just be present on the campuses. Incarnational ministry and relationships... I love it! Also I will be leading Bible studies and hopefully helping start and establish a weekly, evening worship service for college students. (Guess it's a good time to learn to play that ol' guitar!)

We don't have many other details beyond this as of right now. We have to wait awhile before we can work out the details of our living arrangements, job for Calie, and things like that. But again we are really, really excited. Plus we will be about 3 hours to family and friends--that's seven hours closer than where we are now. About 1.5 hours to a certain cabin on the lake. About 9 months of winter for snowmobiling, if not more! Oh, and I can't forget to mention that Calie is super excited to watch the MN Vikings year-round next football season!

So this was our fallout from Call Day 2008! No doubt God has blessed us, and all the future vicars with places to learn and grow. We are so happy to have a place to be excited about! Thank you to everyone for all their thoughts, prayers, and words of encouragement. God is good, Jesus is Lord, and remember that no matter where you are, you are in the mission field! Look out Moorhead, here come the Vera's!

It's here

First of all I would like to dedicate this post to our most faithful reader G. This one's for you!

Well, I know that I told you all that next time I blogged it would be about our fabulous weekend with our friends in Kansas City attending the MN Twins games. Well time has once again passed me by and now we are here at one of the more important days of our lives...call day.

Yes indeed, in a few short hours our fate will be sealed as we are told where we are headed for the next year of our lives. We have no idea where they are sending us, or to do what. A bug has been planted in our ears that Campus Ministry may be in our future, but we will have to wait and see what they tell us at the 3:00 service. Since we are "V's" I don't expect to know until about 4.

Shortly after the service ends I hope to blog to let you all know where we are going! Until then we could sure use some prayers that A. the rain stops, B. we get a placement where we can thrive, and C. everyone gets placements that are good and suit them best. I know that God knows what He is doing, but a little extra prayer never hurts!

Earthquake?! In St. Louis?!?

Yes indeed! Last night at 4:37 I woke up to loud noises. Our windows were shaking, which is not uncommon since they are neither new or good windows. The brass knocker on our door was knocking away and my bed was shaking. I believe my words were something like, "Geez!". After the windows stopped rattling and the door knocker was quite, I tried to go back to sleep, only to realize that our bed was still shaking. It felt the same as when Steve shakes his legs when he can't sleep. So I asked him, "why are you shaking your legs?" he replied "I'm not". So that's when my mind started going and I knew that we had just been through an earthquake.

This morning when I got out of the shower I was going to wake up Steve and tell him that I thought there was an earthquake last night, but I didn't think that he would believe me. (He does not get as excited about this stuff as I do!) He was already watching the news and confirmed what occupied my mind from 4:37am until a few minutes before my alarm went off. Isn't that just the way it goes too? You fall back asleep just before you have to get up!?

So here are the facts: The earthquake was located in Mount Carmel which is 131 miles East of St. Louis in Illinois. It is right on the boarder if IL and IN. It was rated 5.2 on the Richter scale. The shocks have been reported to have been felt in Louisville, KY, Chicago, IL, and Cincinnati, OH.

This is definitely the hot topic of the office today, and I wonder how many times I will have a conversation about this today? But I am excited to say that I have now officially been in an earthquake!

I would like to add to this post, that we just received an aftershock of the first earthquake at 10:28am. I still think that it is exciting to experience this, especially in two different locations. I do have to say that I prefer to be at home with Steve.