Mammoth Lakes update

Mammoth Christian Fellowship in Mammoth Lakes isn't going to work out. They send me an email telling me I wasn't their guy. They wanted someone with more Senior Pastor experience (they knew I had none going in) and they also wanted someone with extensive youth ministry experience (this never was mentioned at all before this).

So. Now what? We've been at this for 18 months now. I've gotern really close on some things but nothing has panned out. I'm tired of this search. Christa is even more than I. So I think that our pastoral search may come to a halt in the near future and we'll buy a bigger ouse around here and I'll stay at the bank.

There's still a couple of resumes out there (Cole Community Church in Boise, Parkview EV Free in Iowa and Central Peninsula in Foster City) but I'm really discouraged right now and all my optimism is leaking away.

How do you end something that you have worked towards for the last 10 years??

Fire station Christmas

Tonight we went to the Rodeo Fire Station because they were having a Christmas openn house and the rumor said that Santa might be there. The father of one of Caleb's classmates is a fireman there nad that's how we heard about it.

Regan spent seemingly the entire time climbing around in the fire truck and wanting to be on the back of it. Santa did come, of course.

Regna had a rather interesting interaction with St. Nick. She handed him a juice box with a straw so that he would put the straw in it and give it back to her. When Santa was good enough to do this, Regan ran over to the snack table, took a little muffin and gave it to Santa.

A little Russian history

Regan is in the midst of getting a new nickname from me. It seems right now that her favorite word is 'No'. It shold usually come with an eclamatio point at the end. Everything is "No, no, no".

So her new nickname is Gromyko.

Google it, people...look it up.

It's finally Christmas

Today it officially became Christmas season for me. I heard "Grandma Got Run Over by A Reindeer" for the first time this year.

Men's group tonight

We had a small group for my small group tonight. 2 men weren't here because there was an appreciation dinner at church for those who help with set-up and another man screwed up his knee aqt the gym. So the 4 remaining ones gathered to study Johsua 4, that great story where Israel sets up a rock memorial to what God had done in allowing them to cross the Jordan River.



We had a great discussion about how to remember what God has done in our lives and we old stories about what God has done. We also shared Communion together and read Psalm 77:11-20.



A good night

Our plan for Christmas

This year we're going to be spending Christmas with my family and with Christa's family. We'll spenhd Christmas Eve with my family and Christmas day also. We'll go to Christmas dinner in Walnut Creek. But we'll leave early from there and drive to Southern California to be with Christa's family. We'll have Christmas with them, complete with Christmas dinner and presents on the 26th.

I"m flying back by myself on the 28th to go to work. Christa and the kids are going to vstay down there for a frew more days and then drive back.

They will probably be down there over New Year's so I am looking for something to do on New Year's Eve. maybe I'll have a small dinner party here. Maybe I'll call Matt and see if he wants to do something.

A Charlie Brown Christmas

My favorite CHristmas program vwas on tonight...but too late for Caleb to watch on a school night. I've loved 'A Charlie Brown Christmas' for a whole lot of years now. The bet part of it is when Charlie Brown is still trying to figure out the meaning of Christmas after being caught i the busyness and commercialism. Linus says that he can explain Christmas. He takes the stage and darkens the lights. He then proceeds to recite Luke 2, tht famous scene with the shpherds when the angelical choir comers to announce the birth of Christ.

2 things that I plan to do with this...the first is to read the Luke passage to Caleb and Regan on Christmas Eve. The second is to begin having 'A Charlie Brown Christmas' party every year...starting next year, of course