What a week! If you keep up with this blog at all, you know that our good friends Brad and Mindy have been going through a mini-crisis as Brad needed an emergency appendectomy over the weekend. My days have been spent helping out with their 3 kids and trying to provide tangible support. The kids (all 5) have been champs about this, hard to know how much they understand and what they really think. In hindsight, I wish I'd have taken more time to ask them. Yesterday, I made the tremendous sacrifice of spending the day at the pool and have nothing but a nice tan to show for it! You know you're hanging out with good kids if you can take 5 of them to the pool and find it relaxing. I'm happy to report that last night Brad made it home from the hospital. On behalf of both of our families, a really big THANK YOU to those of you who have helped out the past few days. Meals, groceries, help with babysitting. So many of us here are far from "home"...we wouldn't survive times like this without our Elevation family. I'm sure many more than we know have been praying through this situation, thank you.

Switching gears now, David found out last week he'd be making a business trip. If I remember correctly from elementary school there are 50 states, but wouldn't you know, his trip has him right back in FL. And not anywhere in FL, but right in the middle of our piece of FL, right between where we shared a little apartment as newlyweds and where we built our first house. Seems like all roads lead to FL. It's a short trip, he'll be home a little later today. I'm afraid it was just enough time to pick the scab of homesickness (sorry for the gross analogy...but it fits).

I'll close on some exciting Elevation news. We had our largest attendance ever Sunday, something like 2060, I may be quoting the number wrong but I do know it was our biggest week. Soon I'll make a point to get some numbers in front of me and do a post on our recent statistics. We are taking over this city. I realize not everyone likes the idea of big numbers, but each number represents a life, a soul. This is good stuff people! I love this church and I am so honored to align myself with this vision. Monday night we had a crazy, intense experience involving a charter bus...I'm not sure if I'm supposed to give details, so for now I will say it remined me of the "old days"...much like when we first moved here and we did crazy, faith-filled stuff knowing God was ready to move as long as we stayed active in the trenches. I'd gotten a little too comfortable lately, still busy with children's ministry and small groups, but maybe letting it get a little too routine. I'll have to update the specifics of what's going on when I know I can.

I always ended my weekly emails with how much I love and miss all my FL folk...can I still do that on a blog?