It's been a few days

I know...it's been a few days since I've posted. There has just been a lot going on.

Here's a short summary:

• I've been preparing my sermon for Sunday's 8:45 service. It's coming along nicely. There are still a few changes to be made and I'm going to go through it a couple of times on Saturday in the Auditorium. I'm going to be mentioning in a passing way 9-11 and Katrina in the sermon. The sermon is about community and there is evidence of a national community during times of great triumph or tragedy. (I like that alliteration.) Earlier in the service, there's going to be a time of remembrance and prayer.
  
• The network server at church has been down all week which has really hampered me getting my work done. I also couldn't get on the internet or do any emailing yesterday. I think that may have been an unrelated problem, but it was still frustrating.
• Wednesday, I sang at the funeral of our Children's Minister's stepmother. The service was nice. It was in Douglasville, Georgia, which is about an hour and a half away which really killed the whole day.
• I'm going to Dunwoody today to celebrate Robbie's birthday. He's 21 today. Happy Birthday!
• I've been trying to select repertoire for my Griffin Music Club concert coming up the first Monday of October. It's sneaking up very fast and I'm not really ready.
• (I think) I'm starting rehearsals for Nunsense tomorrow afternoon. We'll see how that goes.

I guess that's about all that going on. Well...I'm off to put some finishing touches on the sermon.

Sunday, Sunday

Well...church today was quite good. The atmosphere (I'm sure it had something to do with our shared experiences watching the Katrina catastrophe) was somehow different in a good way. The sermon was excellent.

We had two groups of people at church who had evacuated Louisiana. In the early service, one of our church members had her two nieces with her who were from New Orleans. In the second service, we had a whole family from Slidell, Louisiana. The mother of this family was an in-home care nurse. They had brought with them the mentally challenged individual who was the nurse's charge. Seeing those folks in church today was quite moving. Knowing that there were real people, and not some Hollywood characters, involved in this tragedy made all the difference.

The Griffin Housing Authority has opened up some vacant apartments to house evacuees. Also, the Flint River Baptist Association, of which FBC is a part, is housing about 200-300 people at the campground that the Association operates. The child evacuees are going to be going to Beaver Brook Elementary in Griffin, where one of our church members is the principal. The principal and others are going to meet the approximately 100 kids tomorrow and do some initial paperwork, etc. and give them their school bags.

I gathered some clothes to donate. (It was more clothes than one person should keep and never wear.) Our local Red Cross chapter, headquartered here in Griffin, has opened up an old Ace Hardware store in town to collect clothes and other necessities to distribute to the people who are now living in Griffin. They're also collecting items for Alexandria, Louisiana, which Griffin has "adopted" during the recovery/rebuilding efforts. I'm sure that relationship with Alexandria will be a long-standing one if the estimates for recovery time are even half accurate.

On a lighter note, I took this fun linguistics test online.

Your Linguistic Profile:

70% General American English

30% Dixie

0% Midwestern

0% Upper Midwestern

0% Yankee

What Kind of American English Do You Speak?