I've been working on the parsonage...

Jess: For the past two months...

So, we may or may not have mentioned this, but the previous pastor and his wife moved out of the parsonage about five years ago and bought their first house. Needless to say, there has been a lot of work to be done around here. Although we were able to come in before we moved and paint the messed-up, dirty walls, there was a lot left to do. The first time I vacuumed, I filled up our brand-new vacuum before I had even swept the whole house.

Then there were the unused cabinets, the filthy windows, and the bug problem to contend with (with which to contend. Sorry everyone). Not to mention the fact that we had to make sure we liked where all our furniture went, hang pictures, figure out the wireless, find furniture for the guest room and study, etc. Basically, we had our work cut out for us. We've spent the last two months cleaning and re-cleaning every surface in the house, arranging and rearranging furniture, and just generally figuring out what it means to be adults who live in a house.

I've really enjoyed the process, but it's also been quite exhausting. Every time I think we're done, I realize there's one more thing to do, like clean the walls or find out what's living in our garage.

The next big project is the entire outside of our house. Besides the drought all summer long that has destroyed most of the plants, we have overgrown gardens, a shed inhabited by mutant rats, and fall/winter are approaching quickly. Thank goodness I already took care of the moldy siding and disgusting windows, but there's still a lot of work to do. Living in a house is a lot of work, but it's definitely rewarding!

Wes: So as Jess mentioned, there's been a good deal of work to do on the house. There has also been a good deal of work to do at the churches. I had to move into the church office and learn my ways around the intricacies of preparing the sanctuaries for Sunday service. There is a list of To-Do's that have to be done, and I probably forget half of them each Sunday. That list includes but is not limited to:
1. Turn on lights, fans, and air conditioners
2. Light candles
3. Set out flowers
4. Put new hymn numbers on the sign
5. Set out bulletins
6. Make sure I don't need to get last-minute ushers/readers
7. Etc...
It's fun, but it is a lot to remember, and I usually don't remember half of it until half-way through the services.

My biggest challenge so far has been figuring out this whole church thing and all that it entails. The biggest part of that has been learning what church means to the people in the congregations. I've found that the mentality of most of the congregants is that church is what is done on Sunday mornings and on special events. The Holy Spirit has not been cultivated here in a long time, and the people don't know how to handle church sometimes. I think that my main job here is to show them that church, faith, Christianity is a movement. It is not something that happens only occasionally, but something that is alive within you and alive within the world. After I started talking through this idea with some of the members, this mentality has already started to shift and people are starting to grab hold of this idea and run with it. They are starting to look for ways to branch out from the church, attracting more people in and bringing the ministry out.

With this, we've also seen a dramatic increase in attendance, which has been amazing. The Ellisdale church had 40 people at worship on Sunday, ten times as much as had been there in June. Crosswicks is slowly growing as well. We had 30 people at worship on Sunday, and it has been a steady increase ever since we got here.

God is doing some really great things in this place, and we are very happy to be a part of it. Now the parsonage and the church are both on an upswing, and God just continues to bless us unceasingly. Thanks be to God. Amen.