What's In A Day?

It's Tuesday--one of my whole days in the church office. I have much to do in preparation for a trip to Guatemala next week. As I try to discern how I can best help the pastors there with "assimilation," I am reminded at how hard we all try to know how to better "close the back doors" of our churches. Are we so practiced at bringing people in, that we have neglected the other things that need to happen before they are truly "inside?" I fear that's the truth. Discipleship is a good word, but perhaps not done as intentionally as it needs to be done. And who am I, anyway, to tell some pastors in another country what would work best for them? I pray that God will take away any sense of arrogance and pride that I might have and help me have a bigger sense that we are all in this together and can learn from one another. I am not THE authority on this subject! Nor are they uninformed or unpracticed in doing many of the things I will share with them! Must keep that in mind. Well, back to work....

Recent Random Ramblings

The sun shines, all is going well, but I'm barely thinking clearly. Reason? Our beloved, Madeline, (or Maddie as we usually say), is missing--for a whole day now. She is our 8 and 1/2 year old Sharpei that has graced our home and lives for all of 8 years. Eight years is not a lengthy time in the great scheme of things, but it was long enough for her to be deeply inbedded in our hearts. She wiggled out of her collar and escaped. This is not the first time. Usually when this happens she is gone for about 2 hours and then comes home, exhausted and glad to see us. We refer to those random escapades as "Maddie's Excellent Adventures." Not so yesterday. Since she is free of collar, she is also free of identification tags. I just put an ad in the local paper. Several wonderful, consoling friends have urged me not to give up hope, reminding me of other instances in other times, where dogs have been missing for weeks, and then, suddenly, return! Oh, how I hope that will happen with our Maddie. She is getting hard of hearing, so our calls to her yesterday afternoon probably fell on literally deaf ears, if she was even closeby. She is in God's hands and I can rest in that thought, knowing that our gracious God also loves all of creation, including our favorite dogs!

For now, concentrating on work is difficult, but has to be done, and so I will.