As I've told several people the story of this weekend, I figured it would be good to write it down for everyone's reading pleasure.
Friday night we had a nice group over to our house to study Matthew 11:28-30. In addition to some WestSac youth, Karen Medieros and friend, and John from the med center library, Cristy Allen drove over from PUC. By the time we were done, it was late and Rachel convinced Cristy to stay here for the night.
Next morning Rachel got up at 4am as usual and went off to work around 5am. I got up shortly thereafter and got ready to go to Sutter Hill. Cristy got up and got ready to go to Sac Central. If Rachel got off early enough, she would call Cristy who would come and pick her up for the latter part of church. Somewhere in there we told Cristy to invite her parents down for lunch, thus adding to our Sabbath lunch crowd who already included Philip, Don and Luminitsa Mackintosh, and their three wrecking balls (ages 6, 2, and 8 months).
So I drove an hour to Sutter Hill SDA church and, as this was pretty close to Oct 22, I preached that sermon on Simeon that I did at AdventHOPE. They seemed to like it. Hope they put it into practice.
On the way home, I get a call from Philip saying that he had provided a ride to 4 other Weimar students and asked if they could come over for lunch too. In this context, you should understand that the sum total of the food we had prepared for lunch was a small lasagna. Because we thought we might have a few more, we were going to do some Pesto Pizza on frozen pizza crusts. Anyway, I suggested he call Rachel since she was the one who would feel responsible for feeding the rapidly expanding crowd.
Rachel initially said, "no way" but then felt bad and called him back saying, "sure, whatever, we'll make do." And Philip said it was only 3 of them, not 5 of them now.
So Rachel got out of the hospital at 12:30 or so, ran down the stairs and biked home in about 2 minutes. Today she is very sore in the adductor magnus and tensor fascia lata.
When I arrived home, the lasagna was cooking, two pizzas were ready for cooking, spaghetti was boiling on the stove, and Luminitsa was constructing a HUGE salad. Final count: 13 people vs food. Food wins by a small margin of leftover spaghetti (providential as will be seen below).
That afternoon, I transported Don to Sac Central for what I thought would be a short trip. He was slated to speak to "C-SPAN" which stands for something I cannot remember. Maybe it's "California Single Parent Adventist Network but I'm not sure. While he went to talk to them, I sang with the SacCentral Men's Chorus just for the fun of it. They were practicing the same arr. of "We Have This Hope" that Doug, Dave S, UnHa and I did several years ago.
After about 20 minute with them, I decided to get the last part of Don's talk to the single parents. When I entered the room, they apparently hadn't even started yet. A preliminary quiz on the famous single parents was being conducted around a chocolate cake so beautiful my carnal nature immediately started lusting...
Just at that moment my sister called on my cell phone, saving me from temptation! We talked for about 20 minutes and I reentered the room to find Don just starting his study of the Widow of Zarephath (a single parent), who if you recall, fed Elijah during the famine.
Though I missed parts of the study, the following points stuck with me:
Single Parents are responsible for the giving of the Elijah Message then AND today.
Single Parents are the example of faith Jesus chose to use.
Therefore, single parents are an important factor for any church or community at this time in earth's history.
If you've heard Don Mackintosh speak before, you can imagine what he did with those points and the enthusiasm brought to the study.
We returned to the house to find Luminitsa, Rachel, and Cristy gone walking with the three wrecking balls. So we talked for a while until they got back. When they arrived, Rachel tried very hard to keep the kids involved drawing pictures for her oncology patients. I was doing my best to ignore them and have an intelligent conversation with the rapidly fading Don Mackintosh. In spite of both of our best efforts, Elizabeth and Katharine apparently like me and chose to make me their jungle gym. Providing the diaper was clean, I didn't mind too much. I appreciate kids more than I did (better watch myself here) if they're good (which these kids are). However, the best part about it is playing with them temporarily prior to sending them home with their parents.
At 5:30, Rachel had some friends over with their 4 month old baby. We had a nice supper together and then studied Daniel 2 using the little clay figure that Stephanie Brown made when were down in Loma Linda. Very pleasant time and hope to see them next Saturday night at their home to continue. Shortly after our study, Cristy Allen left to return to PUC and the rigors of Med-Surg nursing classes.
Sunday morning Rachel again got up at 4am and was off to work. I'm hoping to study something from Matthew 12 next Friday night and worked on that for while. After checking my e-mail, I tried to clean the house from the remnants of Mackintosh Wrecking Inc. To be honest, there actually wasn't all that much, but then it wouldn't be a good story would it?
About 11, I got a call from the Guthrie family. They were at the Sacramento Airport but unfortunatly would not be reunited with their luggage for at least 2 hours. After hearing about their connecting flight close call, I can understand why. At least they were here and not in Dallas, TX. They assisted with the important task of dispatching the leftover spaghetti to complete the victory over the food. (The victory is not yet complete I suppose as there is significant leftover soup from Saturday night in our fridge. If anyone is passing through town, please let me know.) Special thanks to Cristy Allen for the delicious papaya we had for dessert.
We had a very nice time with them, unfortunately minus Todd and LaurelAnn who had already returned to the working world on a prior flight.
This afternoon/evening Rachel and I have accomplished exactly nothing except perhaps catching up on sleep. It was more fun to call friends and family rather than read journal articles. We visited with Janelle and Jason Shives, Mom Nelson, Kristy Nelson, Dena and George Guthrie (from Hawaii), Nancy Brown, and Heather Stearman. I tried several others but was unable to connect. We would have called more but Rachel (and I) took a 3 hour nap.
I think this post is quite long enough and many of you reading probably agree. So God bless. Happy new week. Cherish life.
Friday night we had a nice group over to our house to study Matthew 11:28-30. In addition to some WestSac youth, Karen Medieros and friend, and John from the med center library, Cristy Allen drove over from PUC. By the time we were done, it was late and Rachel convinced Cristy to stay here for the night.
Next morning Rachel got up at 4am as usual and went off to work around 5am. I got up shortly thereafter and got ready to go to Sutter Hill. Cristy got up and got ready to go to Sac Central. If Rachel got off early enough, she would call Cristy who would come and pick her up for the latter part of church. Somewhere in there we told Cristy to invite her parents down for lunch, thus adding to our Sabbath lunch crowd who already included Philip, Don and Luminitsa Mackintosh, and their three wrecking balls (ages 6, 2, and 8 months).
So I drove an hour to Sutter Hill SDA church and, as this was pretty close to Oct 22, I preached that sermon on Simeon that I did at AdventHOPE. They seemed to like it. Hope they put it into practice.
On the way home, I get a call from Philip saying that he had provided a ride to 4 other Weimar students and asked if they could come over for lunch too. In this context, you should understand that the sum total of the food we had prepared for lunch was a small lasagna. Because we thought we might have a few more, we were going to do some Pesto Pizza on frozen pizza crusts. Anyway, I suggested he call Rachel since she was the one who would feel responsible for feeding the rapidly expanding crowd.
Rachel initially said, "no way" but then felt bad and called him back saying, "sure, whatever, we'll make do." And Philip said it was only 3 of them, not 5 of them now.
So Rachel got out of the hospital at 12:30 or so, ran down the stairs and biked home in about 2 minutes. Today she is very sore in the adductor magnus and tensor fascia lata.
When I arrived home, the lasagna was cooking, two pizzas were ready for cooking, spaghetti was boiling on the stove, and Luminitsa was constructing a HUGE salad. Final count: 13 people vs food. Food wins by a small margin of leftover spaghetti (providential as will be seen below).
That afternoon, I transported Don to Sac Central for what I thought would be a short trip. He was slated to speak to "C-SPAN" which stands for something I cannot remember. Maybe it's "California Single Parent Adventist Network but I'm not sure. While he went to talk to them, I sang with the SacCentral Men's Chorus just for the fun of it. They were practicing the same arr. of "We Have This Hope" that Doug, Dave S, UnHa and I did several years ago.
After about 20 minute with them, I decided to get the last part of Don's talk to the single parents. When I entered the room, they apparently hadn't even started yet. A preliminary quiz on the famous single parents was being conducted around a chocolate cake so beautiful my carnal nature immediately started lusting...
Just at that moment my sister called on my cell phone, saving me from temptation! We talked for about 20 minutes and I reentered the room to find Don just starting his study of the Widow of Zarephath (a single parent), who if you recall, fed Elijah during the famine.
Though I missed parts of the study, the following points stuck with me:
Single Parents are responsible for the giving of the Elijah Message then AND today.
Single Parents are the example of faith Jesus chose to use.
Therefore, single parents are an important factor for any church or community at this time in earth's history.
If you've heard Don Mackintosh speak before, you can imagine what he did with those points and the enthusiasm brought to the study.
We returned to the house to find Luminitsa, Rachel, and Cristy gone walking with the three wrecking balls. So we talked for a while until they got back. When they arrived, Rachel tried very hard to keep the kids involved drawing pictures for her oncology patients. I was doing my best to ignore them and have an intelligent conversation with the rapidly fading Don Mackintosh. In spite of both of our best efforts, Elizabeth and Katharine apparently like me and chose to make me their jungle gym. Providing the diaper was clean, I didn't mind too much. I appreciate kids more than I did (better watch myself here) if they're good (which these kids are). However, the best part about it is playing with them temporarily prior to sending them home with their parents.
At 5:30, Rachel had some friends over with their 4 month old baby. We had a nice supper together and then studied Daniel 2 using the little clay figure that Stephanie Brown made when were down in Loma Linda. Very pleasant time and hope to see them next Saturday night at their home to continue. Shortly after our study, Cristy Allen left to return to PUC and the rigors of Med-Surg nursing classes.
Sunday morning Rachel again got up at 4am and was off to work. I'm hoping to study something from Matthew 12 next Friday night and worked on that for while. After checking my e-mail, I tried to clean the house from the remnants of Mackintosh Wrecking Inc. To be honest, there actually wasn't all that much, but then it wouldn't be a good story would it?
About 11, I got a call from the Guthrie family. They were at the Sacramento Airport but unfortunatly would not be reunited with their luggage for at least 2 hours. After hearing about their connecting flight close call, I can understand why. At least they were here and not in Dallas, TX. They assisted with the important task of dispatching the leftover spaghetti to complete the victory over the food. (The victory is not yet complete I suppose as there is significant leftover soup from Saturday night in our fridge. If anyone is passing through town, please let me know.) Special thanks to Cristy Allen for the delicious papaya we had for dessert.
We had a very nice time with them, unfortunately minus Todd and LaurelAnn who had already returned to the working world on a prior flight.
This afternoon/evening Rachel and I have accomplished exactly nothing except perhaps catching up on sleep. It was more fun to call friends and family rather than read journal articles. We visited with Janelle and Jason Shives, Mom Nelson, Kristy Nelson, Dena and George Guthrie (from Hawaii), Nancy Brown, and Heather Stearman. I tried several others but was unable to connect. We would have called more but Rachel (and I) took a 3 hour nap.
I think this post is quite long enough and many of you reading probably agree. So God bless. Happy new week. Cherish life.
Comments
Hope you guys are great. We miss you at Advent Hope. Youth Sabbath School is still going strong - about 5 to 6 children each Sabbath. All the kids say hello to Rachel and Eric.
Come and visit when you can.
kpl