4 UPD8S 4 U 2 C

I (David) check our blog every day I am in the office, hoping that maybe Heidi has posted something new and interesting. If any of you actually read these things, it is obvious who is the writer and who is the youth pastor. After a month of daily checking, I am finally giving you all a long overdue update- Heidi could do better, but I'll do my best...

1) We are moving to Healdsburg.
a. We've been praying about it for a while and feel led to go serve at Calvary Chapel Healdsburg. We will both have to work other jobs so ministry will be part-time, which will be a big change because I am currently employed full-time at Calvary Chapel Petaluma.
b. We don't have a place to live in Healdsburg yet so please pray that we can find housing we can afford.
c. We need to find jobs too. Pray!
d. We will be offically leaving Calvary Chapel Petaluma by October 14th. We will be announcing our departure to the entire church this Sunday morning and then be around for the next 3 weeks to answer people's questions (e.g. "Do you hate us or something?" or "Can we have you over for dinner before you go?"). As we are low on cash and trying to save for a housing deposit in Healdsburg, we will be accepting all dinner invitations for the next 4 weeks. :)
e. The children's ministry director and a few other families at the church left recently and their departures were all very sudden and left people confused over where they are going and why. In fact, the children's ministry director's departure was announced last Sunday and he wasn't even there to say good bye. We are hoping that people will appreciate our desire to give them time to say good bye to us, but the next few weeks should be really hard for Heidi and I, but also for the junior highers and their families. We have a lot of kids who love us and we don't want anybody to take it personally when we leave. Pray that people can understand that the Lord is moving us on.
f. We are really excited but also pretty freaked out by these plans of change, especially since we will be a little further from family, getting new jobs, housing, and the church we will be in is about a tenth the size of our current church. Besides the senior pastor, I will be the only other paid staff, and even that will be part-time. Our current church has over 700 people (and that's just adults!) while our new church will be around 120 total people. Our junior high group has around 60 kids that cycle through with an average of 25 jr highers meeting with us 3 times a week; Healdsburg has about 15 jr highers AND high schoolers and they meet once a week- the senior pastor told me that this last Friday they had only 5 kids show up. We are basically starting with nothing in a completely different environment than we are used to- exciting and freaky at the same time. Continue praying for us!!!

2) We got two kittens. They are brothers and we named them Yogi and Boo Boo. Yogi is all white with one gray mark in between his ears on the top of his head- I think he looks like yogurt so I called him Yogi. Boo Boo is a tabby and he follows Yogi everywhere, so Boo Boo was a fitting name; plus, it's fun to say "Boo Boo." I'm sure Heidi will post some pictures soon. She has been pleading with me to get a cat for over a year (since before we were married) and her cries had increased exponentially as Summer dragged on. Finally, this last Saturday we went to the animal shelter and these two kittens were there. Heidi convinced me they need each other and it's better to just get two, and so we now we've got kittens. Our house will never smell the same, our shirts will forever have cat hair clinging to them, and we won't be able to eat dinner without them climbing on us, but at least Heidi has her kitties.

3) We vacationed in southern California for about 10 days and got to see a lot of family, plus we went on a cruise from Los Angeles to San Diego to Catalina to Ensenada. I know- really exotic, right? San Diego was the best stop, then Catalina, and I recommend that if you ever pull into Ensenada, don't even get off the ship (dirty, dirty town AKA "una ciudad muy sucia"). But, it was cheap- If you book the same cruise right now, you can get tickets for as cheap as $219 per person for the whole trip- not bad for a room, free food, and entertainment for 4 nights. We have about 400 head shots from the trip- you know, the arms length self-portraits. Maybe Heidi can post some later. For know, use your imagination.

4) There is no number four.