a week in DC

The family and I spent the last 7 days in Washington DC.
It was a little bit like summer vacation before summer.
Except for the part where I had to speak 4 times at National Community Church.
Our church plant here in Palo Alto was birthed from NCC 4 years ago this past January. So it was pretty neat to be back in DC with our mother church on Mother's Day.
And going back to NCC to be with Mark and Lora and the crew was kind of like coming home.
4 of our 6 children immediately formed KFC...the Kung Fu Clan...they played and laughed and pretended they were breaking out of a maximum security facility when visiting the Crime and Punishment museum. That was a little too much fun.
We're hoping they know that crime doesn't pay even if it is fun to re-enact a break out from jail.
Earlier in the week we stayed with family and discovered the beauty of laundry chutes that go straight to the laundry room from the bathroom above and hung out with Robin, our cousin, Fuxia and Grandma Herzog, my cousin Gretchen's grandma who reminds me a whole lot of my Grandma Blakeley. She plays a mean game of Go Fish.
And then there was coffee at Ebenezer's and coffee at Dean and Delucca's and buying
tank tops for $5.90 at H&M in Georgetown and fancy salads with Lora and Nina and Scott played his first round of corn hole against Mark.
We ate hamburgers with Joel and Nina and their sweet kids and mostly we just laughed. And laughed. That was the vacation part.
Then there was the speaking part. Which was not vacation.
But something happened amidst all of your prayers and the pleading of the saints
on my behalf that I would be able to speak without totally dehydrating.
God answered your prayers. And mine. And my mom's and dad's. And Mrs. Paciorek's from Niagara Falls, who my mother-in-law calls when she needs a prayer warrior to step in. And Anna's prayers and Marty's and my sisters and my two rocking sisters-in-law and Beth's and Gretchen's and her Grandma Herzog's, of course. I roped her in at the last minute to pray for me. She was my closer.
All of these prayers wove themselves into a fine netting of faith that wrapped its way around my soul and set my feet on a solid place when I got up to speak.
And even when my Janet Jackson ear mike was against me and tried to slip off my ear despite the fact that I was not dancing - just speaking - (how does Janet do it?)
God put words in my mouth and cleared my foggy contacts so that I could see my notes.
And tsgs, that is nothing short of a miracle.
Praise the sweet Lord. He is good.
He gave me a week of respite and a word to speak.
It doesn't get any better than that.