A Nice Treat

Last night, one of my parishioners came over and cooked dinner for me and my family. Actually, that statement doesn't do justice to what she did! She made a virtually gourmet dinner for us, with many courses. She came and basically took over the kitchen - bringing the food and wine, preparing it, serving us, and then cleaning everything up, and not letting us help at all. It was such a nice thing to do, and very, very delicious - including some new foods I had never had before. After dinner, with dessert, we also played a game called Rummikub - which I had never played before. It was fun and I am looking forward to a rematch, now that I know how to play.

So, if any of you out there wonder what nice thing you might do for your pastor, I would recommend this! My only regret is that I was so tired and had a headache and so wasn't as good company as I wished I could have been.

But yesterday I got over a big hump at school (that's why I was so tired). I presented and handed in my big research paper. The professor will now tear it up so I can revise it and hand it in again in a few weeks for my final grade. The presentation went fairly well, except that Microsoft bit me in the butt! How? Well, I made a Mac-version-of-Powerpoint presentation to use and exported it from Mac format into Powerpoint format, to use on the PC in the classroom. Well, Mac exported it into PP 2003 format, but the PC had PP 2007 on it, and guess what? Microsoft software is not upward compatible! So, half the slides didn't come out right and were basically unusable! Argh! Next time I will remember to bring an adapter and just plug my Mac in. Fortunately, I had also made a handout for the class, so for much of the information that didn't come out on the slides I was able to refer the class to that.

Overall, school has been good - I have learned a lot. It has been hard keeping up and trying not to let it interfere with my church schedule, but on those days I am tired and don't feel like pushing on, I keep reminding myself what a great opportunity God has given to me to pursue these studies, what a great church He has entrusted to my unworthy care, what wonderful parishioners He has surrounded me with, and what a wonderful, forgiving, and understanding family I have. How richly blessed I am.