Adventurous Summer

I know it has been a long time since I have posted anything on my blog, so if you want to do a little happy dance for this new post that is just fine with me.  I have been INSANELY busy for the past few months!  First of all, I graduated from Luther Seminary (YAY!)  As my seminary career was winding down my career as a pastor was cranking up!  Perhaps I should explain a bit.  See, way back in February I was assigned to the Southwestern Pennsylvania Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.  Then I was given a congregational profile for Grace @ Calvary Lutheran Church in Butler, Pennsylvania.  The church looks like this:

It is a very large church that has lots of room and lots of enthusiastic and friendly people in it.  The inside is even more beautiful than the outside.  With the architecture of the building I affectionately call it "the castle."  The church voted to call me as their pastor on the weekend of the 26th and 27th  of June, and my start date was scheduled for July 1st.  With travel from Pennsylvania to Minnesota and back to Pennsylvania, it turned out that I was not able to start until July 2nd, but that does not seem to have affected the relationship of the congregation and me at all.

It is summer so there are not many people in worship regularly, but the average attendance hovers at about 140 in worship.  I really like the building, the people and the town, so I am prayerful that this call will be one that will last a very long time.  I also hope that Anna comes to love Butler as well.

Since the church does not have a parsonage we looked briefly at the possibility of renting a house or apartment in town, but there really isn't anything worth renting that would suffice for our needs, so we bought a house.  The address is 123 East Patterson Avenue, Butler, Pennsylvania 16001 and the house looks like this:

                                                             

It is a three-bedroom, one bath house in a nice, fairly well-kept working class neighborhood.  It needs a new roof, but the seller may pay for at least part of that, so we are not concerned about it.  We really like the layout of the house, and the kitchen is very nice, with all new appliances and cabinets, and plenty of counter space.  There is a nice dining room with plenty of space for all we need, and there are three bedrooms, so that we can accommodate visitors (hint-hint).  It also has a very large back yard and once we get that fenced the cats can play outside as often as they like!  It has a one-car detached garage that is pretty small, so it may become a potting shed in the future after I build a bigger, two-car garage.  I am looking forward to adding special features to this house to make it home, such as a wood shop in the basement and making a craft room for Anna upstairs. 

Right now I am in Butler by myself because the purchase of the house will not close until the 29th of July, so Anna is still in Saint Paul with the cats while I am renting the previous pastor's house.  He has it for sale, but it is too big for what Anna and I need, so we are more satisfied with the house we bought.  We will be loading a U-Haul truck on the 26th of July to make the big move, so if you would like to help out there is plenty to do!  In the meantime I work at the church in Butler and Anna works at the dining hall at Luther and packs boxes of our stuff.  I know it will all work out well in the end.  Happy Independence day andGod's peace be with you!  Blogged by Don