I’ve been on a bit of a blogging hiatus this last week… a forced hiatus, but a hiatus nonetheless.

Last weekend the remnants of Hurricane Ike tore through Kentucky and Ohio leaving over 90% of the Cincinnati area with no electric! The governor of Kentucky stated that this blackout was the biggest in the history of Kentucky, and some people in the Cincinnati area are looking at one week with no electric! It was crazy, but nothing compared to our friends in Texas.

Some pics for the archives:

Our neighbor lost a tree…

Down the road from us was the biggest tree-on-house I’ve ever seen!

We were without electric for one night… no big deal. We were without cable/internet for five days… HUGE PROBLEM!

OK, some more waddup:

• The transmission on our van went out so we are in the market for a new van. I really am not a fan of used car salesmen. Forgive me for lumping them all into one category. While I’m sure there are exceptions (I know some of them) I weary quickly of the shady characters lurking in the shadows of “Honest Bob’s” car lot. Yesterday I caught one of them jacking up the price on an automobile! I checked it out on the internet and then asked him how much it was as we stood in front of the vehicle… he tacked on an extra $1,000. I called him on it and he said, “I didn’t know what they had it listed for on the internet.” Whatever. I won’t be doing business with him.

• The girls are in full swing at school. It’s their second week and their doing great! Every day when I take them to school I pray that God will help them to: have courage, be kind, be helpful (three of the ten characteristics we want for our children). It’s exciting to hear them come home and talk about how they lived out those traits at school!

• I am deeply grateful for good friends. At this point I’m thinking that there are three stages to the church planting journey: 1) pre-plant; 2) mid-plant; 3) post-plant. I am in the mid-plant stage, the stage where there’s a shortage of observable reward for labor and a surplus of hard, detail-oriented work. Things like budgets, church management database systems, planning for core group parties, etc. are drainers but vital parts of preparing to launch well. It’s life-giving to have friends who travel with you, love you, encourage you, rebuke you, and stay on the journey with you in the mid-plant stage!