Interesting week around here. Tuesday marked the one year anniversary of the wildfire that took my in-laws' home. Their new home is being built, but has hit some serious delays. Hopefully they'll be in there in a few months.

Today is Michelle's last day at work for her current company. Seven years ago, she started as a temp at a small biotech company hoping for FDA approval on its first cancer drug. Now the company is one of the top three biotechs in the world. She's met some good people and had a very good experience over all. God has blessed us through that company, and we're grateful.

This morning a moving company rep is coming to the house to do a walk through and give us a bid for what the move will cost us.

We've had more rain this week in SoCal, which has delayed some of my landscaping work, but it has given me the opportunity to do some sermon preparation. I'm preaching at my dad's church on Sunday - my first time doing that in a long long time. I'm kinda rusty, but it's enjoyable.

Tonight we're going to dinner with some good friends of ours. They are in the process of adopting two Russian children, so we're going to a Russian restaurant in San Diego. Should be fun.

Well, we're getting the word out to those close to us, so I feel more comfortable now in just spilling the news more specifically about our move. Michelle has accepted a position with a small pharmaceutical company located in Seattle, WA. She begins work on November 8. I will leave with her on the Nov. 4 and drive her up there. I'll be there for about a week, looking for a place to rent, making some potential job connections for myself, and helping Michelle familiarize herself with her new digs. I'll come back home and keep getting our place ready to rent. Michelle will make a visit home for Thanksgiving weekend, and then go back. Then she'll come home over the Christmas holidays and we'll pull out of town the week following Christmas.

Seattle is an exciting place for us. We're not at all put off by the rain thing. We like the area and feel comfortable with the culture, so we're looking forward to learning and experiencing life from a different perspective. We will definitely miss SoCal and will continue to think of it as our home - and God willing, we will return. It'll be hard to be away from our families. I think we'll realize quickly how much we take it for granted that we can so easily see them now.

I'll have more thoughts as we prepare for the change ahead.

First it doesn't rain for six months, then we get six months worth of rain . . . in three days. It's good because this area really really needs it, but bad because after everything is saturated, the water just runs off into the street drains, or takes some mud into unwanted areas. It's good for my landscaping project because I've been able to very easily dig some irrigation trenches that normally would have taken hours worth of heavy labor, but bad because I was scheduled to pour concrete today and had to cancel because I couldn't build the forms. Hopefully we'll get a bit of a break for a few days, but I hear there's another batch of the wet stuff on its way.

I'm meeting with an elder from my sponsoring church tomorrow. Mostly it's just a couple of friends sitting down over lunch to catch up on life. What he doesn't know is that I'll have a letter with me informing him and the rest of the elders that our church plant is ending.

In other news, I've been watching way too much TV lately. Michelle and I don't watch a whole lot of baseball during the regular season, but we usually get dialed in during the playoffs. So, yeah, we've been watching baseball. Fun stuff . . . unless you're a Yankees fan. Of course, if you're a Yankees fan, you've had more than your share of the fun over the years - which is why the rest of us love to see you lose. I'm pulling for the Red Sox to win the World Series. Honestly, I'd much rather see either of the NL teams beat Boston, but I want "the curse" to end, just so people will shut up about it already.

O.k., that's all.

A couple months back, I attended a training conference put on by my denomination. I was surprised and encouraged at how open and embracing they are to the house church approach to life in the Kingdom. And now this . . . a document seeking clarification of what it means to be a church in our denomination.

"Speaking to trustees during their regularly scheduled meeting, Reccord said the document was needed because of the rapid proliferation across the country of some non-biblical church models including the ‘family’ or ‘simple’ church networks."

Sounds like serious control issues to me. Now that I'm in a time of transition, this kind of stuff entices me to just jump ship and leave this silliness behind.

This is a cool invention. Harmless, and yet subversive . . .

"I was always squandering my time, energy and creativity on something that was at best benign," he said, in the suddenly quiet aisle at Best Buy. "I was always trying to get people to do something good. Some people do something for the disabled or something. But that's not really my thing, so I did this."

Finally some rain in SoCal. Our dog is now six months old, and this is literally the first time she's experienced rain. It's pretty funny actually - she's hyper and excited to figure out why everything is all wet, but she doesn't understand what keeps falling on her and getting her all wet. I guess we should have named her Noah, or some female version of it. Like or not, she's going to have to get used to the rain . . . where we're moving, there's plenty of it, like, like all the time.

The holding pattern appears to have been altered somewhat. And now I enter a time of preparation. As mentioned in previous posts, Michelle has been interviewing with some companies, and has accepted a job offer. It's an exciting opportunity for her - one that suits her very well and represents growth in her career. I'm proud of her. Sadly, I'll have to say goodbye to her very soon. Her new job is out of state, and she'll start in just a few weeks. I will join her in our new hometown at the end of the year, or the beginning of '05. I'll get more detailed about the where and why and how later, but we still have some important people to inform about all of this first. Until then, I will continue working at as fast a pace as I can on our landscaping project here, in order to prep our house for renting.

This change will bring to a close my church planting efforts here in SoCal. It does not change my passion for the Kingdom or starting new communities of faith, and I fully expect to continue in this sort of a role in our new home. Winding things down here is bittersweet. I haven't really begun processing my thoughts and feelings yet. In one sense, I represent a statistic of "failed" attempts at church planting. I'm o.k. with that - I knew it was a tough thing when I started. I don't count myself a failure, though. I definitely don't regret having made the effort. Sure there are things I'd do differently if I could go back, but who wouldn't? The point is, I'm secure in my role in God's Kingdom - I'm still passionate about announcing that His Kingdom is a near and present reality, available to all.

As the next several weeks unfold, I'll write more as I have freedom. Especially without my favorite person around to help me think, I'll need the space this blog provides. Perhaps the few who still follow this blog will help me develop some directions and challenge me to keep pushing forward.