Mark's birthday

Today is Mark's 61st birthday! I am so grateful that I still have him. He has had two stents in the widow maker artery. One was due to it being blocked big time and the other because after two years, he built up scar tissue around the stent and had to have another one inserted. We met when we were 21 years old!!!  We've been together for a long time but I want our time to be even longer!

Kat and Silas are moved in to their apartment in Irving and Silas started a new job today. Hope it goes well and that he likes it there and that they see what a wonderful employee they have.

Kat starts her job next week.

My job is my job... got more accomplished today than most days last week.

Looking forward to having a beach week with Kevin and Amy!

George the Cat

This is George the Cat.
He is annoyed!  He has been staying with us for 6 nights. His people came yesterday and he was so happy. But then they left...without him.  He looked out the window for awhile because he knew that they would be back. Hours later, it was bedtime, and they had not returned. So he went to his room and had dinner and had to stay in his room all night because of the stupid doggy door that everyone seems to think he will go out!

Anyway, his people are still gone and he is still annoyed.

One more night, sweet George!  They will be back tomorrow and then the next day you all move to a new apartment in Irving TX.  Welcome to TX George. This is the 4th state that you have lived in and you've only been with these humans about 5 years.  Hope you'll stay in TX for a while!

Anyway Kat and Silas had a great vacation in Mexico City. They will be here soon!

They called her!

Kat preached at Good Shepherd on Sunday morning and they voted to call her. She and Silas are going to Mexico City for a quick get away on the 14th for a few days. They move to Irving on the 22nd and Silas starts his job on the 25th. Kat starts hers on April 1. Whew.

Mark went on the Walk to Emmaus this past weekend. I wasn't sure if he would really like it, but he did. He does have a question about prevenient grace and has asked Nick, but Nick told him that it was a Methodist thing. I texted Kathryn and told her that her dad may be asking her about it. Her response was "I don't know much about it...it's a Methodist thing."  HAHA.

I talked to Kevin a little bit and things are fine in Austin. I wish Amy felt better.  I'm looking forward to spending a week at the beach with them in May.

Well that was cool

So Kathryn came in last Wednesday for her interview. She worked at the OKC church until 1:00 and texted that she was on her way. Then she texted that her check-engine light was on and she needed to see why.  Apparently she didn't have a fuel cap so she bought one and came down getting to the house at 5:10. She quickly changed clothes and I drove her to Irving. I prayed her up and she went in for the interview. I drove around Irving a bit and then went back to the church parking lot. She texted that she had left the interview while they talked about her. Then she texted that they were going to show her around the church and then she would come out.  Well, she walked out with Lydia, the head of the call committee and they told me that the call committee has recommended that she be called!  She will be back next week to preach and then the church will vote!  So all looks good, but still praying that the vote goes well.

Thursday afternoon, Kat and I drove around some of the apartments that she is looking at and although she isn't as far north as I wanted, the apartments look fine.

Thursday night, Silas came in for his interview. He went to it on Friday after breakfast at IHOP. He was offered a job at the Dallas Observer!  How cool is that!  When it's God's timing, we need to just step back and watch Him work!

Saturday, they looked for apartments in Irving and they will look at some more this weekend while they are here. This is happening very fast! They started to drive back yesterday but Kat's check engine light came back on. So she came back to the house and got the Pontiac. Her car is now at Concourse and hopefully, it isn't anything too serious.

Writing again

So my son writes a newsletter once a week. It is part of his creative-ness.  It is published on Sunday mornings so I usually read it at McDonald's before church and yesterday was no exception.

I don't think of  myself as a great writer, but during church I decided that I  needed to write more.  Maybe just to get some thoughts on "paper". So I said to self...update your blog more often!

So here goes...

My job at TCC is weird.  I'm still an instructor but I don't have any students. I'm still trying to make OCP be the best it can be, but I'm not in the lab. I have a list of things to do from Hank but it still seems weird.  The OCP lab is moving to a larger space in May and I mentioned that I thought he would put me back in the classroom at that time as there will be too many students for one teacher. He said "not necessarily".  Hmmmm.

So I keep working on his tasks and wondering how long this can go on?

Kat is coming in on Wednesday to interview. Praying and trusting that it will go well. Then Silas has an interview on Friday. Praying that it goes well too!

Here's a photo of my cat and dog enjoying our newish sofa.

Prayer

I was asked to give the talk last night at an Emmaus gathering.  Here is my talk...

Good Evening.  My name is Kim Saunders and I was on Denton Area Emmaus Walk #66 and I sat at the table of Martha.

Since the walk, I am very committed to attending my reunion group; we usually eat dinner together once a week. This group of ladies is awesome. I know that I pray for each one and I know that they pray for me. When I need specific prayers, I text them and I know that they will pray along with me.

I have always had a fairly good prayer life, but it is even better and stronger since my walk. I frequently pray in my car on the way to and from work.  When I feel that I’m not close to God, I turn on a Christian radio station and I thank the person who did the talk on Study – because she mentioned listening to Christian music.  I like and listen to all kinds of music but sometimes I just need Jesus and Christian music delivers that to me.

Since the walk, I have learned that prayer is not just me talking to God but also me being quiet enough to hear God speak to me. Sometimes this happens even when I’m not actively praying.  This year – 2018 – I have had three things that I’ve been praying about. Like…praying about them all the time, asking God if he heard me already and should I stop and trust that he heard me or should I pray without ceasing and keep bugging him about these three things. .. and I would just keep praying because I didn’t know what else to do.  In October, two of the prayers were answered with a resounding “YES” – here is the answer. 

The other one I’m still praying, trusting, and waiting.  But that prayer – it is about my daughter – I know that God has under control and the current answer is to WAIT.  You see, my daughter has graduated from seminary but hasn’t been called to a church. Her husband is looking for a new job which could take them anywhere.  So as she would tell me where he was looking, I would create an Excel spreadsheet about that city, the Lutheran churches there, etc.  I,  with the help of my spreadsheets was going to find her a church!!!  Then as I sat at my computer, I heard – not out loud but heard very clearly God say to me “You know I got this”!  Well if that isn’t the best answer to prayer.  So I keep praying about it, not because I think God will forget, but because I need to remind myself that “God’s got this”

If you are having a difficult time praying, ask your reunion group, or other Christian friends to pray too.  Try listening to Christian music, or reading a Christian magazine, or attending a bible study.  God is always right there, but sometimes we need some help in seeing that.

If you, too, are praying about something, remember to not only talk to God, but give Him space to talk to you too.

Thank you.

It's Been Awhile -- Wandering the Desert

So yesterday I got a text from my sister who wanted to post something on a blog but didn't know how to do that.  So I looked up my old blog and found that I had written some good stuff on it.  I texted my pastor my blog post about starting our church and how much joy it had brought me. Lately, I had been looking for joy and I just needed to remember back to that time when I was letting the Holy Spirit lead me!

So it's time for another update.

Last month, Mark and I along with Lisa and Paul H went on a cruise from Vancouver to Hawaii on the Celebrity Solstice. We quickly decided that we would never sail on Carnival again and probably not on Royal Caribbean.  The ship was beautiful and the service and food were awesome.

A few months back, Lisa and Paul, Kathryn and her husband, Pastor Nick, and I were sitting at a table at a party.  Lisa was trying to get her company launched. Kat's husband is looking for a job where Kathryn can fnd a church, Mark is looking for a job....and Lisa said that she feels we are all wandering in the desert. Exactly the way I'd been feeling. I went back to my prayer journal to see if I could find a recent prayer that God answered to assure me.  NOPE!  I had been praying for jobs for Lisa, Kat and her husband, and Mark since January.  NOTHING!  Except HE had spoken to me when I was making a spreadsheet for Kat's job ...  "You know, I've got this*".  Anyway...NO other answer to prayer.  Well about a week before the cruise Lisa was able to launch her company with Vistage.  I was happy for her and proud of her, but also a bit jealous of her. (Truth be told).  Then while we were on the ship, we didn't have wifi for 5 days.  When we got to Hawaii, Mark looked at his email and had one from 3 days prior from Pentair who he had interviewed with four months ago...."are you still interested and we need to know by tomorrow."  He quickly emailed back that he had been on a cruise without wifi, but that he was interested even though it is now 2 days after "tomorrow'. They emailed back and said thank you, we will make a decision next week.  Long story short....he got the job!  WOOHOO. It is for a less money than he wanted, but we have already adjusted our budget to less money and it has benefits including a company car. So I am now waiting for God to get Kat and her husband out of the desert, but I am more encouraged that "He's got this."

* A couple months ago when God clearly told me that "I've got this" I was working on a spreadsheet of various cities that Kat's husband was applying for jobs in....looking up ELCA churches and seeing if they had an interim, how old the pastor is, etc.  I told Nick about God talking to me while I was trying to get everything in my Excel spreadsheet.  He said "God probably looks at you and says Isn't she cute, thinking she can control everything with her spreadsheet." Made me smile.