Yesterday I took Kaileigh on a trip to visit my grandparents and uncle who’s up at Grandma and Grandpa’s place. G&G are both in their 80s now, and Grandpa will be 89 in January. We don’t get to see them all that often, but the last few months, we’ve takena long day trip over to emet them for lunch. It’s a long drive, but fun to see Kaileigh interacting with her great grandparents.
There’s a really cool little used bookstore in Coeur d’ Alene that actually specializes in used Christian books. Several months ago, I had a big list of books on Christian spirituality that my friend Phil had put together as an overview of historic spirituality. I asked my mom to keep an eye open for some of the books, and she came back a short while later with something like 2/3 the books on the list. Good stuff. I got to visit it for the first time yesterday, and found a few things to pick up: Richard Foster’s Celebration of Discipline, a new copy of Thomas a Kempis’ Imitation of Christ, and Eugene Peterson’s look at King David, Leap Over A Wall. I wish it was closer 🙂
The driving time gave me a lot of time to think. It’s hard work, planting and starting from scratch, and for me at least, remaining encouraged and hopeful and focused on the long term is a constant challenge. But on the rewards side, it doesn’t take much to be encouraged. I got to have several meetings over coffee or lunch with folks to see how they’re doing, and heard some good stories.
We’re really trying to focus on being an outwardly-aimed group, doing servant evanglism projects every other weekend, providing open door opportunities like movie nights and BBQs, and listening hard for the voice of the Lord.
pat loughery 
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