Tuesday a.m.

Good morning! My usual routine was severely disrupted this morning, due to our satellite internet being out. I can’t receive or send email, check or read anything on the internet, or post my blog. Since you are reading this, you know that it has started working again, but for now, as I write, I am in the process of being flexible and adjusting. Ha ha - no choice.

For more than a week my focus has been on helping people living in the midst of the tornado damage to our south and east. I’ve lost track of how many phone calls, text, emails, and Facebook messages that have taken place in regard to the matter. Yesterday I finally made it down to one of the areas hit.

We took a nice group of around 15 people. We worked on one guy’s farm, helping him clean up a hay field and clear a place to build a fence to replace the one destroyed by the tornado. It turned out that we working just across the road from where my mother’s parents and grandparents are buried. I have vivid memories of standing in that cemetery as they were buried years ago.

We were also working on the farm where one of our church member’s daughter-in-law grew up. Those were some interesting connections for me. The work itself, as usual, was less than glamorous and dramatic. It was simply cutting up twisted trees and bushes that were intertwined with wire, picking up wood and sticks, and gathering pieces of metal. It was not glamorous, but it was very helpful to the farmer. It was service to the Lord by simply serving one of his sons.

I was struck yesterday by how we worked all day to clean up one hay field. Just one, and it wasn’t that big. That job needs to be multiplied over and over and over. When we started it seemed pretty futile, but once we got going, we could see how things started progressing. Cut. Pile. Separate wood and metal. Pick up the piles with a tractor and trailer and move them to one big pile. At the end of the day, you could see that this was going to be a hayfield once again.

After not much sleep, a good five mile run, and day of working, I was beat last night. No pool for me. I needed rest more than anything, and I got it. I slept well last night and got up before 5 this morning.

Today I get to wrestle with the Intertestamental Period, the time between the end of the Old Testament and the beginning of the New Testament. There are 400 years to consider. You go to bed with the Persians allowing the Jews to go back home and rebuild their Temple (Ezra & Nehemiah), and then you wake up and the Romans are in control (Gospels), synagogues are everywhere, Pharisees and other sects are present. How did all that happen? My task this week will be to explain that in a way that keeps folks interested. Challenge!

Tonight is the tempo run. I need 10 miles, so I am going to start a little early to get a few in before the group goes at 5:15. I hope your day goes (is going) well.