An Olio of Nonsense

I don't have anything particularly exciting to tell you and so I am not likely to blog. But I remind myself that this blog is not only for the exciting events in my life (though there are so many). It's for my whole life, and most of it is pretty regular. So here's an account of some regular things happening at the Palmer household.

We have morning glories growing in our gutters on the front of our house! I think this is pretty cool. They are purple. I'd like to harvest and replant them, does anyone have a ladder? Whose morning glories are these? Where did they come from? I have no other morning glories in my yard. To whomever planted these beauties in the first place, thanks for sharing!

Last week our computer died. Saturday we bought a new computer! It's seems gigantic compared to it's predecessor, a 10" Netbook. Our new computer is a 15" laptop. Huge, I know.

I like garden tools. I've never had a real need for any. I've borrowed here and there, but now we have a yard and a garden. How exciting! My list of recently acquired garden tools is as follows: leaf rake, garden hoe, trowel, garden hose, watering can. My list of desired garden tools is as follows: wheelbarrow, shovel, hedge trimmers, 1 1/2" loper (telescopic, preferably), Miracle-Gro hose attachment, weed whacker, lawn mower with bag, leaf tarp.

I finally got rid of the poison ivy in our front yard. I unknowingly encountered said poison during my first work day at our new house in June. That poison plagued me for over 2 weeks. Son of a...! That's stuff's no joke. We have a small rock wall in our front yard. The ivy was growing behind it, over it, through it, and all throughout a large bush in front of the wall. I have been afraid to tackle it. If you had seen my arms and legs (some of you did), you wouldn't blame me for my hesitation. Last weekend, armed with elbow length gloves, lopers, scissors and a bottle of some sort of poison ivy killing chemical, I destroyed the ivy and trimmed the bush through which it was growing! Tada! Victory over poison! A taste of your own poison, poison ivy! Moohaha! What's this? A pea sized spot on my arm? Drat!

Otherwise, the cats are happy and Jeff continues to impress me with his dedication to fixing our house. The kitchen plumbing was a success. He's on to wiring now.

Whether you hate this blog or enjoy it, even a little, let me know. I'd love to here from you. Rachel :)

Labor Day Weekend

Jeff and I spent the holiday weekend in Mt. Pleasant. Pleasant, so pleasant. We drove over Saturday morning and spent the afternoon cleaning, sorting and packing. That evening we cleaned ourselves up and drove to Midland for an anniversary dinner at Molly's Bistro. While living in Mt. Pleasant, Molly's became one of our favorite places to eat. We ate our first meal as husband and wife at Molly's in 2008. So Saturday we returned for an early celebration of our 2 years of marriage. What we like about Molly's is it's unique entrees and live music during dinner. Molly used to sing in New York. Now she sings at the restaurant joined by a pianist, bassist (stand-up bass), and drummer. Sweet, mellow music. To be honest, Molly's voice makes me a little crazy, but it's the atmosphere, the way it makes me sway and tap my foot, that I love. We also like Molly's for it's slow pace. It isn't for everyone. Certainly not for those who come into the restaurant starving. I've learned to ration out the bread and oil so I don't eat it all in the first 5 minutes. Though we enjoy the pace now, by the end of our very first meal there we just about fell asleep at the table. I'm serious. It was our wedding day and we didn't realize how tired we were. We began the meal energetic and chatty. Before the end, we were both slouching, hunched over the table and not saying a word to each other.
Sunday we went to church at MPCC. There we were able to reconnect with a number of people we used to spend time with. After church we had the pleasure of sharing a meal with Fred, Janis and Zack Taylor. Janis had the brilliant idea of going to Stan's! I had the french toast. I ate all 6 pieces and the sausage links. And some of Zack's bacon. Yum. We chatted and chatted with Taylors for a couple of hours. Sigh, so so good. I miss them terribly.
After lunch Jeff and I bought a paper and took a nap. That's what we do on Sundays.
After nap time, Jeff resumed sorting and packing. I proceeded to book our social calendar for the evening. We were able to spend time with Sarah and Andrea and finished our evening around a campfire with Phil and Bethany. Do you know what I loved so much about this day? And I did love it so much. I loved it because it was just like any other day in Mt. Pleasant. Surrounded by people we know. Just a couple miles, blocks in one case, from our dear friends. Love at our fingertips.
Monday morning Holly made us breakfast. A perfect morning full of friends, love, yummy food, coffee, words and hugs.
Oh, dear God, thank you for Mt. Pleasant.

Moran Park: A Faith Community

This past Sunday at church I was given the opportunity to share our story of how Jeff and I "happened upon" Moran Park. Pretty cool. So now I think it's time to tell you that story and fill you in on Moran Park. First, some Moran Park (MP) details. MP is a satellite campus of a bigger church called Ridge Point Community Church. MP was created by a group of people that wanted to serve the neighborhood specific to MP. They put it like this "Moran Park is a neighborhood church serving the area surrounding the Moran Park campus. Moran Park is committed to fixing what’s broken in every aspect of life by reaching lost people and leading them to full life by thinking, loving, serving and living like Jesus."
Mid week 8 weeks ago, Jeff asked if I wanted to try another church this weekend. I said sure. He suggested one just down the street, he didn't know the name. I knew what he was talking about. Rachel -"It has a green sign, right?" Jeff-"Yeah, and free coffee at 9:30!" The free coffee clinched it. That weekend we attended Moran Park for the first time. We were welcomed from the get go. A really nice guy named Charlie introduced himself and just started chatting with us. Learning that we were new to Holland, we invited us to hang out with his small group that night. Wow, thanks. So at 6:00 we met in the park next to the church. There we met Charlie's wife, Susanne, and about 4 other couples. They were so nice, and normal. Not church scary. We all took turns asking questions. Jeff and I asked about the church and what brought these couples to MP. They asked about our life in Mt Pleasant (the other MP) and what brought us to Holland. We enjoyed ourselves and left with an open invitation to the small group and to a potluck at Charlie and Susanne's in 2 weeks. Needless to say, we returned to Moran Park the next Sunday.
We were away for 2 Sundays, but returned for our 3rd time on the 8th of August (my 33rd birthday). This was such a neat day. For this story I will default to Britton's blog. Oh, Britton is the pastor at Moran Park.

prayer at moran park

My time as the pastor at Moran Park continues to be a learning experience. God is doing some incredible things. The other week I was getting ready Sunday morning to preach. I was feeling a lot of distraction and couldn't get my thoughts together. When the service started and we began singing, I kept feeling this sense of distraction among the people there. I wrote it off and kept singing.

When I got up and began to preach I felt an even stronger sense that something was going on and prayed to myself as I started talking. All of a sudden the mic cut out. I quickly changed mics and continued talking for another minute or two. Then the mic cut out again. It was like God was trying to get my attention calmly and then had to cut out the mics twice becuase I wasn't getting it. I shared that I didn't think I was supposed to be preaching that morning. My first thought was, "Oh crap, but now what are we going to do?" I explained to the faith community that I was going to pray and then invited anyone who wanted to come up front to pray to do so in the microphone.

As I was praying, I thought there was no way anyone would come up front and actually pray in front of everyone else. To my suprise, when I finished praying there were 5 people in line to pray. The doubts in my mind kept coming as I thought, "Oh no, I just gave an open mic to random people that i don't even know." Despite my fears, the prayers were beautiful. Powerful, raw prayers of a variety of struggles and praise came from the mouths of those who shared. When the line got down to one or two people, a few more individuals would get up to pray. This went on for 45 minutes. If I would have waited, it probably could have continued all afternoon.

I was going to be teaching on faith - how we are to go to God for more faith as he is the one who gives it, but that was demonstrated by those who came up to pray. I was going to talk about how we need to be open and honest with our doubts and struggles so we can encourage one another towards deeper faith, but that was demonstrated too.

God showed up in a powerful way and demonstrated what I was going to be teaching on. It was unbelievable. We have new people at Moran Park every week so I made a comment at the end, "If you are new to Moran Park, I'm not sure what to tell you. I guess you never know what to expect here or how God will work." www.brittonsmith.blogspot.com

Jeff and I are a part of this. Can you believe it? How grateful and amazed I am that we get to be in this place with these people. Thank you, God! Thank you so much for this amazing gift!
I am thrilled to be with people who want to follow Jesus and who want to love his people. Who recognize that people are real with real issues that need to be addressed. To be in a place where we listen to God and obey. Dang. This is awesome.
I was one of the people who stood in line to pray that morning. I couldn't help it. I had been having such a terrible time with life. Sad and lonely and anxious and discouraged. I could use some prayer. If God was trying to do something, which I believe He was, I wanted to be a part of it.
After the service Charlie and Susanne asked if they could come to our house and pray over/for it. I broke into tears, "that would be amazing". So Charlie and Susanne followed us home and the 4 of us prayed and asked God to fill our home with all of Himself. Thank you Charlie and Susanne.
Phew, that's a lot, I know. If you made it through, thank you. These recent happenings are very important to me and I want you to know about them. Rachel

p.s. After Charlie and Susanne left our house, Jeff looked at me and said "So, I think we've found a church". Yes we have :)