Goodby Kentucky, Hello Weston, Missouri!

I started this blog almost a year and a half ago in order to share with anyone who cared what the Voigts in Kentucky were up to. Well, The Voigts in Kentucky blog will soon come to a close. A couple of weeks ago I received my first appointment as a Provisional Elder in the United Methodist Church: Weston United Methodist Church in Weston, Missouri. I will be the Senior Pastor there much sooner than we anticipated. They have had an interim Pastor since December and he will leave the first weekend of June. They have invited us to come anytime after that. So, we will pack up on June 9th, begin the journey on June 10th and arrive in Weston on June 11th (Thursday). My first Sunday will be June 21st. Until that time we will set up house and take a little vacation. The parsonage is only four years old and is absolutely amazing! We feel incredibly blessed to live in such a gorgeous home. Weston UMC is a phenomenol church (and community) as well! They have grown from around 85 on Sunday to 120 in the last three or four years, many of those folks have joined via first time faith affirmations. They have a contemporary service and a traditional service, which I am really looking forward to. Kim and I are also excited to be a part of a small community, which will be a new experience for the both of us. We were really hoping for a smaller church where we could get to know people really well and feel that Weston will give us that opportunity. We also feel blessed to be so close to both of our families again since we've been away for five years now. There are many other great things I could share about the community of Weston and our new journey but I think I can sum it up with "we're excited"! We will miss our friends here in Kentucky a great deal and look forward to staying in touch with them as we begin a new family transition: Voigts in Weston:)

And Now We Wait . . .

The family made a quick trip to Missouri this weekend. We left on Saturday for Springfield. Unfortunately we hit the aftermath of the ice/snow storm an hour after we hit St. Louis. So it took us 4 hours to travel 20 miles! This pretty much squelched all of the plans we had in Springfield for that night. We pulled into the Potts' crib in Springfield around 9pm (10 pm our time). After visiting a while we hit the hay. The next morning we went to Schweitzer for Sunday School and then missed church because our class had lunch at 11am. After visiting with that group, saying "Hi" to Kim's old gymnastics crew and paying homage at Bass Pro we took off for Columbia. Ready for the really funny part? After 3 hours we rolled into our hotel in Columbia only to realize I left my suit for my 3 hour commissioning interview in the closet at the Potts'! It was 9pm and I had no suit and no shirt! So, I called Lori from Schweitzer who is on the Board of Ordained Ministry that I was interviewing with. Kim had offered to drive back to Springfield and back that night to get the suit. Lori said to run to Wal-Mart and buy a pair of pants and a shirt- so that's what we did at about 9:30pm. I didn't have a jacket, but I actually liked the pants and shirt- go Wal-Mart:) My interview the next morning went really well. I was in and out of the four different interview teams pretty quickly and felt everyone was very kind and supportive. After the interview the family loaded up and headed back to Kentucky. About 30 minutes after we walked in the door I received a call that I had been accepted as a provisional Elder and would be commissioned at Annual Conference in June! So, now we wait for the next call! The next call will be our placement in Missouri. Please pray for our family as we wait patiently to find out where we will live in three months:)

Kentucky black out!

So I went through Louisville yesterday after I dropped Kim off at the airport; what a mess! I though where we lived was bad. There was a tree blocking a road in one area. I had to drive to four different gas stations to find a place that was open. It almost looked worse than Springfield a few years ago. Almost everything in downtown Louisville was shut down too. Alexis and I tried to go to several museums, but the only thing open was the Louisville Slugger Museum and factory. They were in the process of making Ken Griffey, Jr's bats for pre-season- that was cool! We have been without power for 2 1/2 days now. They say that it may be another 7 days before many folks get power again. I'm going to assume they are talking about someone else and that we aren't counted among the "many".

Chance to win Logos

http://www.flowerdust.net/2009/01/12/im-giving-away-6100-seriously/

Follow the site above to a gal's blog. She is giving away a free version of the Scholar Version of Logos to one lucky winner!

All kinds of craziness:)

So, even though it's January I still have a lot in the mix. I have two J-Term classes in the next three weeks. Both are one hour long ethics courses: Creation and Evolution and Death and Dying. I got my books yesterday and am ready to get em' done. I've also been working on my commissioning paperwork that is all due in two weeks. I just finished putting together the 4 DVD's I have to turn in for preaching and leading worship- that took a while! I also finished all the tedious "fill in the blank" pages of information collecting and about half of my theology questions. So, I can almost taste sweet victory:) I'm also in the midst of planning a packing trip to the Smoky Mountains. Once again, anytime I need to work hard it always helps to have a "play hard" goal at the end to keep me focused. Brandon (fishing buddy) and I are going to attempt to climb a mountain, hike and camp out for two nights and three days in JANUARY!! It sounds risky, so I like it:) It'll give me a chance to utilize the new 0 degree bag I got in light of a broken zipper on the last bag. The new one is a Kelty, Cosmic 0 degree mummy bag. I look forward to posting an update after the trip. The last thing I've been working on is an independent study. I decided I wanted to be more efficient in my IBS (Inductive Bible Study) skills. Professor David Thompson (author of Bible Study that Works) has agree to tutor me through my Isaiah Exegesis Course (Sandy Richter), especially in the areas where I would utilize IBS. I'm very excited about this opportunity and look forward to hopefully becoming a lean, mean IBS maching:) So, now I'm going to open a bag of expensive coffee (Starbucks employee perk) and have breakfast!

My Great Adventure!

So I went on another fly-fishing, overnight trip again this weekend. It was an opportunity to try out some new gear and get out into the wild:) It was a great 23 hours. Here are the trip highs and lows, combined with some outdoor gear comments:
Highs:

• Beautiful weather
• New rubberized trout net worked really well; flies and hooks didn't get caught in the net!
• Coleman Peak 1 Single-Burner micro stove worked very well. Heated up food and water in a hurry and was super compact and packable!
• Had some good snow this morning while I was fishing. Made for a beautiful view and was a pretty awesome moment. Nobody was around this morning while I fished; just me, the river, the snow and palisades.
• I stayed on the camping spot on the island near the beginning of the Dix River. It was difficult to find a place for my tent, but there was fire wood galore! I practically had a bonfire going for four hours and a fire in the morning for breakfast. Nothing like free firewood that requires no cutting!
• Caught quite a few fish! I caught my limit both days; nothing huge but most were decent.
  

Lows:

• There was a beastly wind at my face on my way home this morning. I'm pretty sore from rowing my rear off because of the wind.
• My new 0 degree, feather lite, Ledge sleeping bag was kind of a bust. It was very tight, and I could probably use an extra-long bag. However, the worse part was when the zipper broke in the middle of the night. I got up to take the rain fly off the tarp (it was windy, but no clouds). When I got back in the zipper snagged as I was zipping it up so that it didn't zip as it went up. While I was pulling it the zipper piece broke off. I finally got the seems to match up and managed to zip it up using the inside zipper piece. I was a little bit cold when I woke up at 3am. It's supposed to be a 0 degree bag, but at 23 degrees I'd be afraid to take it any lower.
• I didn't sleep as well as I would have liked: wind on the rain-fly, took the rain-fly off, zipper broke, woke up a little cold, etc.
  
• Had to leave for work. I really wanted to stay a couple more days! It was a great trip, despite the zipper issue!

Did I mention it was a solo trip? It was fun, but solo trips always make me a twinge nervous. Nothing like hanging out in the woods of Kentucky by yourself to live on the edge. I might go to the Smoky Mountains with some friends in a few weeks. That will be another adventure to share later:)

Christmas for Christians??

As I get older there are some elements of Christmas that are well focused and some that are increasingly bothersome (and I don't throw out the word bothersome everyday). Gift giving does promote an unselfish and giving aspect that I think is important. It would seem to correlate with the wise men and their gifts, even though they gave gifts to Jesus and didn't receive a tangible gift back. I think I struggle with the Americanization of Christmas, especially as it leads to consumerism. It does create a flux in the buyers market unlike any other time of the year. So much so that many business' count on the flux in order to survive. Kim just text'd me to share her current disdain for the season for the first time ever. Why? Because she has been on a big, brown truck that delivers gifts to many since after Thanksgiving week. It has put a lot more money in our pockets, but she is exhausted and ready to hibernate. I think somehow, for Christians, Christmas needs to change. It should somehow celebrate the birth of the Messiah and reflect the values and goals the Christ child has for us all. So, any ideas as to what that might look like for a Christian community? Christmas Eve service is great, but its more like the anasthetic for a post-Christian society. Just about everyone goes and walks out feeling like they did their duty for the year. I think we need something that creates community interaction and demonstrates thankfulness and worship. Maybe someone is already doing something like this?? What is it:)??