Painting Instead

BJ, Abraham and I were going to take a "staff retreat" today to do some rock climbing up at McConnell's Mill State Park. It's a beautiful little park only about 1 hour from Pittsburgh. I was really looking forward to the getting out in the woods and having some fun. I haven't been climbing in around two years, a lot of the things I love have had to take a back seat to seminary and The Open Door. I'm realizing though that for me to survive in the city I need time away in the woods, I really needed that in the suburbs too. My rock climbing idea was a bit of a selfish idea, but it was going to be a good time of bonding and learning to work with one another.

Yesterday we got an e-mail from Duane, he's coordinating the volunteers at the Union Project as well as a lot of the construction. His e-mail was a desperate plea for help to get the building ready for a group of 40 high school and middle school kids to come in on Thursday. So, needless to say, we changed our fun day of rock climbing to a day of painting. Beleive it or not the painting was just as rewarding. We were able to help out our friends and help get the building one step closer to housing our worship gatherings starting this fall. It's an exciting place with a lot of exciting and good people. The picture of BJ is from the last time he and I worked at the U.P. together, the days when working there meant getting very dirty.

I will get a day of climbing or at least hiking in before Baby "C" is born!