West Cocoa Chat

I had one of those busy weekends that one needs a week of work to recover from. It started out when I tried to leave school Friday afternoon only to be welcomed by a dead battery in my Expedition. I found a colleague to give me a jump and I made it all of 100 yards down Fiske Blvd. before my Expedition died again, this time in front of the school. My good friend Monty came by and was able to put a meter on my battery to confirm it's demise.He gave me another jump and away I drove to “Wally-World.”

I left my car running outside of WW and went in to buy a battery. To borrow a term from Greg, the Automotive Manager looked at me like I was “from another planet” when I asked him how long it would take for them to install the new battery? His response was, “Sir, it’s Friday night.” Needless to say I took the battery home with me to install myself the next day.

Friday night my son went to the Cocoa High vs. Space Coast High football game Friday night. Steven rode with some friends to the game while Barb and I took advantage of a free evening to get some Mexican food. When we came home I started on my study guide for my “Mayberry Bible Class.” Steven called around 10pm to ask if he could bring 3 friends home to spin the night. What we didn’t factor in to his request was the 3 boys having to go home and get their baseball gear for Saturday’s 8am “voluntary” workout. Steven and his posse walked through the door around midnight.

Saturday morning started out with the almost next to impossible task of waking 4 teenagers up in the morning, making sure they had all of their gear, and getting them to the ball field by 8am. Actually, the boys got up rather easily. They all seem pretty motivated to make the varsity baseball team this year. I drove the boys to practice. I decided to hang around to see how Steven hit in the cages. He did quite well.

We came back home minus 3 boys to get the house ready for 6 more boys. Steven invited most of the boys in the Youth Group over to spin the night at our home. Barb had me busy getting the house ready which raised up a foul smell, literally. Our septic system began acting up which meant it was time for this big boy to go dig a hole to look for hair! About every 4 to 6 months I have to pop the cap off our septic tank, pull out a filter that is meant to catch hair, soap, and other foreign objects from going into our septic tank, and relish in the aroma as I hose off the filter. I don’t know why my next door neighbor Monty, would get upset with me as I was washing off the filter downhill towards his yard.

After this cleansing experience my next task was to install my new battery. This task doesn’t require an engineering degree unless you have a Ford product. I quickly discovered that Ford’s better idea was to put a different size bolts on the positive and negative terminals. The designers who work at Ford are cruel people.

We left Steven and his 6 friends at our home to attend our “Newcomer Dinner” for our new members at Central. We had almost 60 new members attend the dinner. It was one of those few times as an elder when you get to hear people say mostly positive things about the church.

The Sunday morning worship was good for the 2nd week in a row with our attendance going over 300 for the 2nd week in a row. My afternoon was cut short by a 4:00 meeting with one of our teens, her mother, and our Youth Minister. The daughter had fallen off attending church and she had been a leader in our youth group at one time. The meeting ended on a good note despite the mother’s attempt to sabotage my efforts at the end of our meeting.

We had a “Family Talk” following our Sunday Evening service. Again, most of the comments were affirming with a few folks bring up some concerns but doing it in a Christ-like manner. That is for this mother who for some reason tried to sabotage this meeting as well. She quickly found out that she was in a group of one. I plan on talking with her today about this disturbing behavior.

I’m just glad to be back at work where I can take it easy!