weekend

all the driving for the funeral and burial went as planned...

thursday - up to cinci and back for the funeral. it was a wonderful service and really solidified my desire and anticipation of becoming a pastor. dad drove up the previous night and watched jake and then we went out for a delicious dinner at three suns bistro on thursday night.

friday - down to jamestown for the burial service. we arrived plenty early so i showed lindsay around the wood family cemetary and farm a little bit and then we went back and drove around jamestown some. around a dozen of us carried the casket from the hearse to the plot. it wasn't that heavy at all with that many people helping. the church had a potluck for everyone that afternoon (as did the church in cinci) and afterwards we just hung out with the family and talked and watched a bit of basketball. nice and relaxing.

saturday - we spent the night at the motel down the road and then got our central / eastern time messed up and ended up on the road an hour early saturday morning. that gave us time to stop for breakfast at shoney's in cookeville before doing a bit of easter clothes shopping in nashville. we found me two great suits and three sets of shirts and ties. i doubt i'll wear a suit every sunday, but that doubled my number of suits. we went over to dad's, picked up jake (dad took jake to nashville on friday morning when we all left the house), and then we all headed out to my dad's parents for my grandfather's 70th birthday party. nearly all the family was there and it was wonderful to see them! then, we went and picked up my mom's mom from her assisted living place in mt. juliet and two hours later we were finally back in jamestown - whew!

sunday - we were able to sleep around 10 hours (10p to 8a) before getting ready for easter sunday service at my uncle's church (well, we slept as good as you can with the three of us in a queen bed). sunday school (taught by my cousin) and the worship service were great and it was so nice to be with family. after a delicious dinner, prepared mostly in part by my wonderful aunt, we hit the road and returned home by a slightly different route that only took around 2.5 hours. we went straight to the mexican place for dinner because after a whirlwind weekend like that we sure didn't feel like cooking :-)

a good night's rest and now we're back at it here on monday. lindsay has 3 patient days, jake has 3 t-ball practices, i have class and homework, and the plan is to go to knoxville this weekend for a baby shower and my father-in-law's birthday.

whew!!

R.I.P. Rev. Eugene Campbell

My uncle passed away this morning at the age of 70 and it made me realize that I have never really had to deal with a death in the family in the past 6 years that I've been blogging...

Lindsay's paternal grandparents passed away in may and December of 2003, but I just happened to not really be blogging much at all during those times. basically: I hate death. Some Christians live their lives looking forward to the afterlife; my outlook is different - I believe we are to effect change here on earth while we are here.

My mom is the youngest of five and Eugene is the husband of her oldest sibling, Joyce. given the near 20 year age difference, Eugene and Joyce are near my paternal grandparents' age. my mom's father passed away in 1995 and over the past 13 years Eugene has become like another grandfather. three of my uncles are Nazarene pastors and it was Eugene who usually prayed at Thanksgiving and New Year's.

I always enjoyed having a good conversation with Eugene at our family get-togethers. Those used to happen more, but with time we've grown older and all of us grandkids have our own families now rather than just the five families of the siblings. When I would sit down with Eugene he would often tell me about one of his latest sermons. Sometimes the points of the sermon would spell something and it reminds me that a sermon needs to, in some fashion, fit inside a nugget that the hearer can take home with them.

You see, Eugene has been the pastor at a church near Cincinnati for roughly 30 years. Yes, just a bit longer than I've been alive. Over the course of that time they've lived in the same house and known one way of life. Some wondered if and when Eugene would retire, but what would he do after that? It wasn't just that he was a pastor, he was a pastor to this particular community.

In the summer of 2006, we went up there for Eugene and Joyce's 50th anniversary celebration. There wasn't just family there. There wasn't just church members there. There were also simply members of the community there. If I remember correctly, the mayor came and presented them an award for their service to the town.

What Eugene and Joyce and their family have done in this community over the past 30 years is exactly what I discussed at the beginning: effect change. They have spread the light and love of Christ over this entire community and all are better off for having known them.

catching up on rest

so after a week of little sleep due to ...

a paper for that seminar class last month (finally done on saturday; now i can just focus on my last two classes), i made myself quite tired and a bit sick. not a cold-type sick but a weird infection thing for which i had to get an antibiotic. those things could be unrelated, whatev...

i had to drive over to louisville saturday morning for a meeting renewing my minister's license which is all a part of the road towards ordination. from the looks of it, i'll just have to take one nazarene history class and i'll be completely done with my education requirements for ordination! woohoo! the last thing remaining will be two years of service as a lead / senior pastor (or i would have to do four years as an associate pastor). as i mentioned, my resume is out there and i've begun following up. at this point, i'm kind of waiting for something to open up.

first t-ball practice

that was fun! it was a workout for not only jake, but me as well!

i think we're going to have a really good team. the difference in the six-year olds and the first timers is pretty amazing. they have the option to do coach pitch and they were doing really well hitting the ball on the first night! first we practice catching grounders and throwing back to the coach to get warmed up. then they took the t-ball kids out to the outfield to teach / practice hitting and i caught for the coach pitch kids. i need to work on my own throwing :-) we ended the practice by running the bases and the kids - and especially jake - loved this part. he wasn't sure what to make of it all at the beginning of practice, but by the end i think he really liked it. it was fun to be able do this with him. we didn't get home until nearly 7:30 for our 7:00 bible study. i'm exhausted from a week of staying up late and getting up early so we ended up just playing cards since we were missing a couple of people anyways. alas.

i should be caught up on hw after this weekend and i'm very close to being on the downhill for the semester (and seminary!) as a whole. almost there!

long day ... but a good one

the cliffs notes version:

woke up, got ready, took jake to school, went to class, went to work for 7 hours, picked up jake, met lindsay at his first ever t-ball meeting (first practice: thursday), got to class late (i had e.mailed my prof), ate some dinner around 9:30 (because i forgot to heat up my hot pocket when i left work), worked on greek hw til 1am, got up at 6:15am...
but seriously, it really wasn't that bad. all the ducks just kind of fell in a row.

regarding t-ball, jake can throw, run, and hit all pretty good so i'm going to work on catching with him tonight. we tried a few this morning, but his new glove is just too big. i need to see if there are any other options.

new car

so we traded in the 2004 toyota highlander for a 2008 hyundai sonata

and, in effect, got a car that is 4 years newer, has 80,000 fewer miles, and is $44 cheaper on our monthly budget. woohoo! the car grows on me more and more. it has xm built-in (we're currently on a free trial) and is incredibly roomy. hyundai is at or near the tops in safety and has been on the up and up as a brand on the whole. it's our version of a camry for less money. we'll keep it until (if and when) the time comes that we have more than 2 kids. it's this cool metallic midnight blue color and it gets 30 mpg to boot.

the past month

amazingly, i'm already a month into my final semester.

and it feels great. we had a huge snow this past weekend - 6" worth - and i'll totally post pictures (and a bunch from 2007 since i have none) in the gallery some time after graduation. yeah, no promises.

anyways, i was able to catch up a bit in my reading and it helped me realize that there's not a ton left! i'm trying to schedule out when i'm going to write a bunch of little two page responses. no real huge or major papers left. i actually have a final exam for once in a blue moon, but we're supposed to have a really good review for that.

jake has his first t-ball meeting tomorrow night and i'm stoked. he's on the white sox. he can throw, hit, and run so now we just need to put all that together and help him catch the ball. i'm not sure how i'm going to have time to asst. coach, but i finished the certification (took forever!! online lessons, quizzing, and testing.) and it's worth it to me.

the biggest news (well it's neck and neck for another thing for which i'll make a separate post) is that i have sent my ministerial resume out to the nearby district superintendents. i'll follow up soon, but you can assume that this will be an ongoing process and prayer concern for a while.