Bits of stuff: Catching Up...Fall '09

The last couple of weeks have been a blur of activity! Here's a few snippets:

1) My mom had to have pacemaker replacement surgery. She's had one for a number of years, and eventually you have to get it replaced; it wasn't a dangerous situation per se...

So she had the surgery, and it went well, but she couldn't seem to recover. She had shortness of breath and felt extremely weak. My dad took her to Urgent Care like four times, and finally they found out that she had some fluid in her heart (apparently caused by one of the parts of the pacemaker). So they drained that fluid, and went back and replaced the part that had caused it, and she recovered really fast after that. As of today, she's home and almost back to 100%.

2) Busy week of ministry at Crossroads! Yesterday we celebrated our third anniversary as a church. We had a great morning of worship and teaching (starting our new study "Sovereign Grace" from the book of Ephesians), a cool slideshow spanning our three year history, and burgers from the In-N-Out truck afterwards! We also gave out our new worship CD that I produced over the past four months or so. (If you want one, leave a comment...)
The same week we had a great Men's Breakfast with over 70 guys! Pastor Dave Hegg came over from Grace Baptist and preached from Psalm 15.
Also last week, I moved my office for the fourth time! We got a lease on the unit directly across the parking lot from our current unit in the Industrial Park. We'll put all our offices over there, and have space for more adult teaching rooms, as well as a dedicated youth room.
We also went over to the Master's College for their "Church Ministry Fair" which is an opportunity for new students to find out about local churches that they can attend while they're at the college.

3) Jess started school over at Village Christian last week. She's entering her third year as a high school English teacher there. She teaches 10th and 11th grade English with an honors class thrown in there somewhere.
This will be her first year teaching that she is NOT also in school herself! She's finished her Masters degree in English, and completed and cleared her California teaching credential, so she's completely done! (I give her a few more years before she wants to go back for a Doctorate, but we'll see...)
This year we're trying to save really carefully so that next year she can take the year off of teaching and give a really concerted effort to her writing. She'd like to try and write and get published in the young adult genre with an adventure story she's working on featuring a deadly virus, gang warfare, a daring rescue, and a world in chaos. I won't say anymore, but yeah, maybe she can get it out there!

Hopefully we get settled into the school year routine quickly, and life gets back to its normal pace (which seems to be increasingly chaotic as it is!).