Tornados, laptops and vehicles

This past week has been insane. I was planning on updating at the beginning of the week, when to my dismay, my laptop battery completely died. So, I had no computer until Wednesday afternoon. Wednesday evening, a line of severe storms moved through the area, spawning a tornado which knocked power out, both at the house I'm staying at and the church. Duke Energy was saying that power wouldn't be restored until 11pm, SUNDAY NIGHT, so you can imagine my surprise when I walked out of my room Thursday evening and saw the glorious sight of lights on in the house.

It's kind of cool to see how communities come together when something like this happens. The first strip where electricity was restored was where all of the stores/restaurants. So, you can imagine where everyone spent the days without electricity. I went to Wal-Mart the morning after the storm, and everyone there was really polite. No one was pushing or complaining about the really long lines. The people working were all at least putting on smiles. Whether they be real or fake I don't know, but there were smiles. The University, which also was one of the first things to get power back, opened its facilities so that people could come take showers.

I'm preparing a sermon to give next Sunday, on the texts of Jeremiah 28: 5-9, Psalm 89: 1-4, 15-18, Romans 6: 12-23, and Matthew 10: 40-42. I have a few ideas on where God is leading me, so we'll just have to see how it turns out.

PR and I talked about prayer, and the different ways of prayer. One of the things she mentioned was that I might like to try out a different way of praying. I decided to make prayer bead chains, and I really like them! It helps me have something to do with my hands while I allow my mind to talk with God.

One of the projects I am working on is signing the Sunday service. One of my passions is to work with people with disabilities, and providing translations to people who cannot hear is one way I can do that in the church. As of right now, I have The Lord's Prayer and The Words of Institution translated. Currently, we do not have any members who cannot hear, but who sign. I hope that as it becomes public knowledge that it is a service we're offering, that we will start to have some deaf/Deaf people come.

I am also employing another of my talents that I never considered to be ministry-related. As some of you know, another of my passions is Martial Arts, especially Tae Kwon Do. I will be leading a self-defense class for the members of the church, and any friends that they might want to bring. I never knew my interest in TKD would be something that I could turn into ministry.

I wonder what else there'll be?