Desert Notes

9-22-2022
Last weekend so many of you worked so hard to clean up and clean out our sanctuary and prepare it for the upcoming changes and improvements.  It was so wonderful to see what we can do together and it was fun–almost like an archaeological dig!  We found many outdated items and some useful things that got forgotten.  We teamed up and rolled our sleeves up.  Thanks to everyone who came!  Sweat equity pays off in more ways than one.  Also, there were donuts.

John, Sol and I will be visiting our oldest daughter in Missouri over fall break and to attend Family Weekend at her college.  Since she graduated from high school in 2020 we haven’t been able to visit her and we’ve moved twice across the country.  She came to see us in Georgia for Christmas break the last two years, and in summer 2021 we were able to do a road trip together, but we haven’t seen her IRL since January of this year and this mama needs to see her kid!  

One of the most complicated things for staff serving a congregation is balancing our work lives and our home lives.  So many meetings take place in the evenings and on weekends, and of course for Katie, Marci and I, being at Sunday service is part of our jobs.  I encourage staff to make sure their families and friends still have access to normal times with them.  I learned this the hard way, when we had a German student visiting us while Ally was living in Germany.  I suddenly saw our family schedule from the perspective of someone who was coming from a different culture and to whom we had made a commitment to not just host but share our time with.  I saw how seldom I had more than one day off and that the day I had off was not one I shared with my family.  This wasn’t good for any of us, and it made vacations, camping, and date nights pretty hard to manage.  Now when I schedule a Sunday off, I try to schedule Friday night and Saturday as free as well, and I try to schedule time off when my kid(s) are out of school or on break so we can enjoy time together.  This has made a world of difference for us and for me as a whole human being.  Whether our staff has kids at home, grandkids or friends and extended family to maintain connections with, I hope you’ll understand when we aren’t able to attend something at a time that works for members occasionally and find ways to stay in communication.  We are committed to making sure you have what you need to “carry on” whether we can be there or not.  This is also what it means to be in shared ministry with one another.  

–Rev. Sarah

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