What's Up?

The hours of daylight have been changing since the
change of time a couple of weeks ago. In January it was
dark until late morning, and dark again around 4:30.
Even though I wake up early there is plenty of daylight
now. The days are slowly growing longer. We have had
some glorious days of sunlight over the past several
weeks. But this is Scotland, and the weather can change
very quickly and quite often.

I thought I would share with you what I have been doing
during the last two weeks of April. I have been busy, but
I continue enjoying what I'm doing at this time. Basically
I focus on church work that takes up between 45 and 50
hours a week. As a probationer minister I was told to try
to do no more than 40 hours of church work a week. Yeah,
right.

I continue to enjoy the one year I was granted to work on
my thesis. I think I am starting to comprehend the trauma
that the 2006 cardiac surgery had on my system, especially
my mental functions. Sometimes I wonder if I haven't recov-
ered my mental agility to the level I was at before the sur-
gery. Regardless, I enjoy the process of working on my the-
sis and look forward to being finished with it soon.

Since I preach every two weeks, I use the week before I
preach to prepare the sermon. It use to take me about
12 hours to prepare a sermon; now it takes me about six.
I'm slowly getting back up to speed after being away from
pastoral ministry for over five years. I'm looking forward
to preaching through the book of Ephesians in June and
July when my colleague, Rev. Dr. Ken Jeffrey, is away on
a well-deserved two months sabbatical. He is confident
that I'll be able to keep the church on track while he's
away.

I try to do six to eight pastoral visits a week to elderly peo-
ple who are no longer able to attend church. Some of the
conversations have been quite precious. A large number
of them are in their 80s, and a few are in their 90s. Some
conversations are half an hour in length, and some can be
nearly two hours. It is a privilege to visit with them. I have
made over 60 visits with around 50 more to visit.

I have done several nursing home services. Yesterday I
used my iPod and portable speakers to play several
hymns I had downloaded from the iTunes store. Some of
the people joined in singing, others just listened to the
hymns. They really enjoyed that. I am also being called
on more frequently to conduct funerals. I had one last
Saturday and am preparing for one next Monday. I am
finding funerals to be a good time to minister to and
serve others. I actually enjoy doing funerals.

I must make time to do things essential for living, like
grocery shopping, cooking, sleeping, and having some
down time. I have found it hard to take a full day off, so
I have been taking parts of days off twice a week. It has
worked out quite well for me.

Blessings, and all the best to you and yours,