Drought ....

The Land of the Ultra Rev has been a little slow over the past several weeks due to busyness. I've sold my palatial estate here in Black River, NY and have been looking for new diggs. We are thrilled because we buyers offered us almost exactly what we wanted. We close at the end of August. So we've been busy packing and searching for a new home down in the Syracuse area -- mostly looking in northern Onondaga County or southern Oswego County. We had narrowed it down to a couple of houses we were mildly excited about, so we then decided to look at building a modular. We narrowed that down to a piece of property and a couple of building plans, but that plan now appears dead as the taxes would have killed us. Taxes in the village of Phoenix, NY are 5.2%. The home we were hoping to build would have left us with a monthly tax bill over $550 a month. So now we're back to wondering what to do -- buy a house, look for a new piece of property, Work has been very busy with trips to northern MN, Ashtabula, OH and Harrisonburg, VA in the past month. Our big event in MN with Diamond Rio, Ricky Skaggs, Pat Boone and Thousand Foot Krutch will take place Sept 7-9 and I'm drowning in final details. One more trip there next week before the event. Had a great meeting in Harrisonburg last week with my boss doing a great job of leading. Gotta love it when your boss strongly encourages everyone in the organization take a day off monthly for prayer and fasting. I also had the surprise over the last month of having a wonderful Covenant Church contact me for a conversation about being their pastor. What an honor! I eventually ended the conversation -- before they were ready (sorry friends). But in my heart it seemed the right thing to do. All in all I've been busy and unusually stressed and my blog has suffered. Each of these matters have had far reaching implications ... Will I ever pastor again if I say "Not now."? Will I ever plant a church? Am I moving to the right area when my plans to go there seem to get repeatedly foiled? My family needs some serenity and stability -- will any of the options in front of me bring that? We need to be in a new church asap for all our sanity and spiritual growth. Thank God my wife has been terrific. As a women with 4 kids at home and being 19 weeks pregnant, she gets more done than anybody else I know and with a better attitude than me. Incredible. My parents, too, have been incredible. The good news is that I'll sell my house for a profit and be completely debt free, if only, momentarily until I buy a new home. Thank you Lord. Keep us in your prayers.