I won't lie.
It's been a killer hard month. Busy. Too busy. Full of really high highs and really low lows. I wish I could be better at keeping up with this blog during busy times, but this is one thing that gets pushed by the wayside.
Here's a run down of what's been going on:
Brandon and I were asked to be the campus pastors of Redemption Charlotte. We got to choose the city, and Charlotte has been on our hearts for a long time now. We are excited about the opportunity, but of course still trying to wrap our brains around what will go into starting a new video campus in another state.
A week later Mom's battle finally came to an end. She won. Not in the sense of "I beat Pulmonary Hypertension", or "I got a lung transplant finally", but "I passed this test, I finished the race, I gained the prize...and the Prize is Jesus." She went to be with Him on September 21. We were incredibly saddened, but also relieved that she is suffering no more. We are grieving as best we can. It's terribly hard, and lonely at times. But we remember that she is with the Lord and that gives us hope to see her again. Hopefully a long time from now, right?
Our friends, Brad and Cory-Marie got married the day after Mom's memorial service. It was a beautiful wedding and we celebrated as much as we could considering the circumstances.
A week later, we went on a cruise that we had been planning for months to celebrate our 5 year anniversary. It was a good time to rest and reflect...and eat. We did a lot of all that. We reconnected as a couple and it was a wonderful time to have a little respite. We spent a couple of days in Charleston after the cruise with some friends and enjoyed celebrating another wedding...Amy and Yves Gege. It was a gorgeous day and perfect for a wedding.
Four days after we got home, our nephew, Channing, was born in Fayettville, NC. We drove there to be with John and Pepper and welcome little Chancakes to the world. We haven't been able to see him since, but look forward to getting some good baby snuggles at Thanksgiving.
On the way home from Fayetteville, we stopped in Charlotte and stayed with a buddy who gave us a generous tour of the city, mainly Uptown areas. We got charged up and excited about that.
After we got home we decided to try to move forward with our move and put our house up on the market. And before we could do that, we had to do some big time renovations. New hand scraped floors in the foyer, great room, dining room and hallways/closets. New ceramic tile in the kitchen and bathrooms. Touch up paint, little projects here and there that have needed to get done...it is now "go" time. We've been staging our house, packing our belongings up, and furiously cleaning to keep it sparkling clean. We are praying for a quick sale so we don't have to keep this up for long, because it is just plain exhausting.
We have been taking a lot of trips to Charlotte and are excited about what will happen there. We've been reading a lot of books about multisite churches and speaking to people who live them out. We're digesting a ton of material in a very short period of time. Thankfully, I have been a part of a church that did multisite pretty darn well, so I have a little experience in it. A little.
My aunt Leslie beat cancer last week. In the same way that Mom beat PH. They are now enjoying Jesus together, I'm sure. We went to Greensboro to be with our family to celebrate her life last weekend.
So that's it. Not much. Wait...I'm lying. I told you I wouldn't do that.
