Hello friends!
At this very moment my ears are ringing with my daughters’ after-school mania, and yet I’m pausing for a moment of renewal reflections. (I wish you could hear how crazy it is in my house right now! 🤯) With a mission of joining Jesus in the renewal of all things I wanted to share one way I glimpsed goodness, peace, and restoration in our ordinary lives this week.

Kevin and I spent 5 of our first 7 years of marriage struggling with unexplained infertility. We longed and prayed for a child. It was excruciating. (I processed through writing.) But those years were also sweet. We got to work side by side in ministry, oftentimes literally. We spent so much time working at our local Panera or Agua Dulce the baristas and owners knew our names, our stories, our coffee orders. (Hi, Wendy! Hi, Tony & Sheryl!)

Being co-leaders of church ministries and being married comes with its fair share of difficulties. (“Um, excuse me, Dear, I’m trying to go to sleep. Why are you bringing this up now?”) But Kevin and I make a really good team. We are two halves of the whole pastoral picture: vision & planning, forest & trees, administration & compassion. When we work side-by-side towards a unified goal the synergy is beautiful. 

And that brings us to this week. For the first time in SEVEN YEARS Kevin and I worked side-by-side.

Junia started preschool on Monday, and our good God granted the most peaceful transition into the classroom. We get to walk her school. She loves her teacher “Chelsea Cheese.” (They associate each person’s name with a symbol…like Junia Jellybean.) She was Holy-Spirit-brave as we walked in. I kneeled beside her and reminded her to say “the Lord is my Shepherd” if she was nervous. (The Lord is My Shepherd is the breath prayer we’ve taught her to prayer.) And then I left. 

Suddenly I was home, working in my new office space, sharing conversation with my husband while we made a cup of pour-over coffee. U n i n t e r r u p t e d. It was shocking and glorious. 

That afternoon Kevin and I loaded up our laptops and headed off on our bikes to Depot Town. We passed our neighbors and got to chat about our cats and shared birdseed. (Their cats were eating the birds, and they noticed our feeders were empty so they set it out to give us the next time we walked by.) And then off we biked to order coffees at Cross Street Coffee, chatting with Ahmed the owner and celebrating a newly engaged couple and watching EMU students walking by. 

It sounds like the simplest things. Laptops. Coffee. Bikes. Neighbors. But all together these were glimpses of renewal. 

I am grateful for partners like you who believe in this work of missional presence, who pray and encourage and contribute the means for me to be present to my neighbors.

Thank you, friends, one and all.

Pastor Mel