January 16, 2008--Interview

The interview went really well. It took us longer to get there than we thought, and the time just flew by. It felt like we were there for a couple of hours, but it was nearly four hours. We had been planning on going to church tonight, but we didn't leave in time for that. The parsonage is actually a double wide trailer with a basement. It's big enough, though, and has a hill down the back with a little tiny creek that goes along the back of the property, with a small cemetery behind that. There's woods all around. It looks like a wonderful place for the kids to play. The church is an old fashioned country church, built in the mid 1800's. There's a newer addition they just finished a year or so ago, with two bathrooms and another classroom. There's an office, a sanctuary with yellow padded pews and orange carpet, a prayer room, and a basement with Missionette colors painted on the walls. There's also an old bell out front--one that I'm sure Jay will climb to ring as soon as he gets the chance. The man we met with and his wife are both very nice people. They made us feel so welcome. I don't think Erick's going to be very nervous preaching at all after meeting them! We are going down again in a week and a half to candidate. He'll be preaching both services, and then we're going to pray about it and if we feel that this is where God has called us, then they'll vote on us. It's a small church--22 members, about thirty attenders altogether--but I think it could grow. It's been 60 or more in the past and I don't see any reason why it couldn't be again. There aren't very many children, though. If we get this church, I'm going to need to find a way to provide some social contact for the kids. I'll have to find out if there are any homeschool groups that have co-ops or something. Of course we'll also be involved in 4-H, but that's not a year-round thing they can have friend at normally. On the way back we decided to stop and get a phone card and try to call my parents (who were watching the kids) to let them know that we were going to be later than we thought, and that we weren't going to be going to church, and that they could get some spaghetti from the house if they needed to feed the kids. Erick decided to be funny and tell my dad that the truck had broken down in Terre Haute and that we were stranded. Funny guy. My dad was buying it, too, until I yelled over Erick's shoulder to not believe him. We also tried to call the church and let them know we weren't going to be there, but no one picked up and it went to the daycare. We tried to tell the lady to give a message to the children's pastor, but she must have had a real hard time hearing us. I only had a minute left on the phone card (those pay phones really use the minutes!) and she kept saying, "Who is this? Lucas? Okay, I'll tell them!" while I was yelling, "Luper! Not Lucas!" Oh well. They can't say we didn't try.