The Family Page
Updated12/27/02

Church Field Trips Expose Us to the Larger Christian Family!
We have been members at Church of the Holy Spirit for 15 years. This little church has gone through many ups and downs and it is truly our family. Early this year we realized we had reached a point where we struggled with whether our church offered what our family needs. Our church has few families. Our kids are often the only kids in Sunday School. We would love to worship with other families with children our children’s ages. This would provide us with men and women who could support us in prayer and hold us accountable when we go astray. Other families would provide our kids with the truth that there are other kids who share our same faith.

When Terry served as Senior Warden of our church we were able to put in place programs that brought in families, but our lack of wisdom led to the realization that our church wasn’t prepared for the complications and the need for risk, accountability and forgiveness, that arise when you bring in more and more families. We were not prepared for the hurt and brokenness that arise when the necessary conflict comes from these growing pains. We realized that we needed to be firmer in our faith so every trauma wouldn’t blow us apart. We also realized that we tried to change a wonderful body of believers into something that God might not have wanted them to be at that time in order to meet our needs.

The problem was we didn’t know what to do. We loved this church family and more importantly we believe we should stay committed to a church even when things got really bad. This is where we would experience growth the most. Boy did we experience growth. God has given us so much more than we ever could believe as a result of facing the challenges at church. But this didn’t take away our desire and need for our family to be surrounded by other Christians who prayed, played, studied and challenged each other in their walk with God.

One day while praying in church, we believe God gave Terry direction for our struggle. We were to spend this next year going on church field trips. We talked to Fr. Larry who understood our plan and now every other week we worship at home with our church family where we are loved and embraced by many faithful people. On the alternate weeks we go visit many different denominations giving our kids an opportunity to learn more about the vast ways Christians do this thing we call worship.

Everywhere we have attended we have met friends who welcome us into their worship experience. We have been blessed with dynamic teachings from the pulpit as well as in Sunday School classes. Our kids have been welcomed into Sunday School classes where they have seen a bigger community of kids who explore their faith.

Consistently we have been affirmed that this is not the time to leave our church family at Holy Spirit, but this is a time for God to calmly guide us and rebuild us after some very challenging lessons he provided for us. The kids have been able to explore what is important to churches. We’ve had great conversations about what is core to our faith because worship experiences truly do differ.

We are also blessed when we return to our home church. We are still able to serve in small ways at our church, yet we are not desperate to volunteer and solve all the problems we perceive at our church which keeps us out of trouble as well as gives God the chance to do what he wants to do in His timing. We also have learned the important lesson that we can be so busy doing God’s work that we miss God and/or our family in the process. We appreciate Fr. Larry’s ability to be our Pastor and how God uses him to preach sermons that follow the same thread of teachings we hear week to week from other pulpits. We are able to see an amazing example of faithfulness in this small community of people.

Our need for accountability and people to walk this journey and pray with us has not been fulfilled, but as a family we are learning what this looks like through our discussions. We don’t know what the answers are yet for our long-term worship issues or our need for strong Christian community, but we do know that God has given us this gift of time and we are once again having a lot of fun worshipping God no matter where we find ourselves on Sunday.

Thanks to all those who have invited us to do a field trip at church and/or welcomed us when we found ourselves wandering into your church. Keep the invitations coming. We will keep doing these field trips at least until summer so we have many more field trips to experience. Also thank you to our church family who are supporting us through your understanding of our choices and the love we truly feel when we come home to the family we have worshiped with for these past 15 years.

This Year We Became Cultured!

A dream of ours is to experience the arts as much as possible. This year we had the opportunity to expose our family to many stage performances of classic Broadway shows. Instead of spending money to go to New York, Denver or even downtown to the Pikes Peak Center, we supported the Colorado Springs Area High Schools by attending their Spring Musicals. This was a phenomenal experience!

Throughout the year we were able to see

  • Fiddler on the Roof
  • Music Man
  • Footloose
  • Godspell
  • Joseph and the Technicolor Dream Coat (we saw this in Denver)
Performances were around $5 a performance – kids were often even cheaper and we were able to invite friends to join us. What was great was that the kids could experience these classic shows at their level, but a cheap price! Courtney often slept through 1/2 of the performance, and if we’d paid big bucks to see the show, we’d be rather frustrated. We could also bring in our own snacks (even yogurt if we wantedJ), walk around and see the orchestra pit and even meet all the performers if we wanted. We kind of figure this the best way to become cultured!
We Continue to Make Our House Our Home…
This year we have continued to make this house more of our home. Although our dream is to someday move back to a Victorian type house or maybe build our own home, we are finding this house to fit all of our needs at this time. With this said, we can’t live anywhere without doing some major projects. So far we have kept our work to the outside of this house. We move slowly, but we are beginning to see some real evidence that this is our house.

We spent this spring putting in garden boxes in the back yard. Our goal was to get this in so we could have a lush garden by summer. Well the garden boxes look awesome, but we were slow to get the sprinkler system running – and then with our different travels and the drought – we ended up having more of a weed and dirt look for this summer. The area is still a work in progress. We have a place to put in a fountain. We have visions of having these old school desks with vines and flowers surrounding the fountain. We’ve also acquired an old diving block as a memory from our swimming pool (The pool is being rebuilt this year). Somehow we think we will be able to incorporate this unique garden ornament. Some people have cute little figurines and baskets and pots – we tend to have our own flavor of stuff as our décor. The work in progress is continued throughout the backyard with our back fence. We put up a noise barrier fence to help muffle the obnoxious street noise we have. It works a little bit, but more importantly we’ve been able to begin an ongoing mural. We have yet to have time to actually finish painting our murals, but we look forward to constantly changing it anyway. For those who live in Colorado Springs – we have the vision of the same look as the “mule barn” on Fillmore.
The backyard has become a real play place with the addition of the trampoline and deck. We were convinced the yard would be killed wherever the tramp was – but it turned out this was the only place our grass thrived in the drought conditions of this summer. As we spent time in the backyard we realized how much we see the tools and junk we have – so we moved the junk into a shed that Terry built. It was a simple kit (Terry was able to put it together in a couple of days) but it fits perfectly on the side of the house. Our garage and yard still overflows with junk, but now this can be another place for us to hide stuff.
The best project was our new front porch. We already had a concrete porch we poured last year, but we needed a roof to give the final touch and atmosphere of our little outside room. We learned after pouring the concrete that the building code people didn’t like our plans. They wanted us to remove our brick facing on the house in order to anchor in the new roof. That seemed completely overwhelming to us so we began to ignore the problem. Time went by and a friend from the pool who is beginning his own construction business offered to have this little project as a test project for his new company. Bob was able to come up with a new plan that passed the building code people and Voila – he built us our new front porch. We need to paint still and get sky chairs hanging, but we have visions of long days reading or drinking coffee out front once again!

These projects always leave more projects in the wings and already we are slowly moving inside. We have paint in the girl’s room now and Jennifer has thoughts of window replacement, carpet replacement and a new kitchen floor. We laugh that once we get this house JUST RIGHT – we will be ready to move once again. Jennifer is convinced this is why we need to pick up the pace on these projects so we spend a longer time enjoying our efforts instead of having the house perfect to move. Terry believes the need to do home improvement projects is just in our blood and the only thing that would stop the projects in one house is to move the efforts to a new house.
Before
Now

POINTS POINTS POINTS!
Watch out – Jennifer & Terry joined Weight Watchers!
We’ve always been on a diet of some kind. The problem is that on our diet we’ve always ended up gaining or loosing absolutely nothing. Then we were blessed by a good friends decision to join Weight Watchers. This friend hates almost all fruits and vegetables. She is by far the most high maintenance eater we know. She joined Weight Watchers and loved the program. Then we have another friend who raved about the program. He pointed out that the program was for anyone who had 10 or more pounds to loose and for men the program really worked wonders. Then our neighbor who we didn’t think needed to loose anything started looking fantastic. Low and behold – another Weight Watcher’s member.

It was time – we joined Weight Watchers in late June and as a family we have learned how to eat in a healthy and balanced way. Terry is like a new man. The most important thing is that he feels much healthier. We are now able to go on walks without getting tired – or go on a bike ride without it being a major effort. Jennifer didn’t have as much to loose, but as the one who prepares the food – she needed to completely learn how to feed the family. Weight Watchers really is a fantastic program and we recommend it to anyone who has ever struggled in the world of diets!
Prayer Walking Commitment:
This year we have had some challenges at our elementary school. It is so hard for us that our school, although great academically, is not necessarily the environment we want for our kids. This came to a head at the end of the school year last year. We struggled with our school choice. The kids are getting a great CSAP kind of education. We love their teachers who all are remarkable educators. Philosophically; however, the school is not an inviting community of learners. It is a building where children go and learn, but in our opinion and from our experience it lacks the passion and fun that elementary schools could have. We have even experienced examples of breaking the community because of differences instead of using differences and conflict to bring about growth, change and community. We thought about moving the kids to another school, but decided that we can’t do this to the kids. Plus they are getting a good education, their classrooms encourage the love of the learning and we can give them the environment that we believe will create a bigger picture of the love for learning. We will be able to teach the kids the value of celebrating differences, embracing risk and working through conflict with integrity and compassion. So as parents who are educators, we have pulled out of most volunteering at our school to avoid any political discussions. We decided that we view things as an apple and the people in control view things as a banana. With these differences, we will have no ability to join in the discussion.

We still felt at a loss; however, because a core value is that we will be committed to our children’s schools. With the realities of our elementary school we decided the only way we could be committed was to pray for the school. Just as we decided this, we were invited by a neighbor to do a one-time prayer walk at the beginning of school. The prayers in this little packet are very structured, but as we walk around the school we are sure to pray for every aspect of the school. The original group only gathered once, but we decided that we would continue this weekly. Although our prayers that motivate us to walk around the school weekly have not been answered, God has blessed this time in amazing ways. Our hearts have softened towards the people involved in the conflicts we perceive because we have recognized the magnitude of everyone’s need for forgiveness. We have been blessed with the realization that the conflicts we perceive will require hearts to change; therefore, we are right to walk silently right now. We have been blessed with a calm attitude when we walk into the building every week. Lastly we have been blessed by the image of how Jesus prayed for us as we turned and deeply rejected Him. He didn’t fight and he didn’t turn and run away. He prayed and mourned the relationship that could be – and he did this because of his Love for us. We have learned that loving sometimes looks different than our dreams and in the end – we are confident that God is listening to our weekly prayers no matter how our issues at school get resolved. For those who struggle in their school and want this tool – we’ve included a copy of these prayers. If you go to our school and want to walk with us, we try to go out every Saturday morning around 7:30 am for about 30 minutes. We walk around the school 7 times. Either that, or find a time that works for you and join in getting great exercise and the blessings that come from praying for your children’s school.
Prayer Sheet
Coming Soon!