yes, it's august

The summer has clipped along at a steady pace, and has included 1) picking Jacques up from college and getting him to Haiti 2) watching our college team travel to Haiti and welcoming them home 3) attending Annual Conference 4) writing on average two tweets per day about Psalms 5) welcoming two good friends, Ben Witherington and Peter Wallace, who have spoken at Providence 6) traveling to speak to a group of foundation executives in San Antonio in June (great people, but really, shouldn't meetings in San Antonio be in the winter?) 7) spending almost two weeks on vacation at our mountain cabin, including a rollicking July 4th 8) having meals with good friends from former churches in Greensboro and Winston-Salem in the mountains 9) having our younger daughter home for a portion of the summer (yeahh!) 10) watching more Atlanta Braves than usual (I like the transformation of the team, with trades for Church, McLouth, and now LaRoche) 11) seeing a Braves game and a Knights game 12) joining friends at our new favorite restaurant, Azteca on Independence (very reasonable and very authentic) 13) taking in a book reading by the novelist Ron Rash 14) discovering a television show that everyone in our family seems to like, In Plain Sight 15) finding a great bookstore at the Habitat ReStore on Wendover and 16) enjoying the somewhat moderate climate.

On the church side, there have been some really good moments: welcoming a number of the Joy Class (adult developmentally disabled) into formal membership; 100% Chance of Rain by the children; watching one of our young adults take off to give a year of service in the Dominican Republic; listening to one of our college students sing a beautiful solo in worship; talking with one of our youth who was departing for Westminster Choir College camp; full gatherings in the chapel and the charter annex for the teaching sessions on the psalms; serving 100 on a Wednesday night at St John's, most of them children; a container load of food being sent to the School of Mercy in Haiti; a girl born to one of our associate pastors; working through familiar psalms in the sermons---23, 51, 121, 137; ongoing visits with a couple fighting a chronic illness; a lobster dinner with good friends.

The summer has been good and full, and one senses that it is coming soon to an end.