Am I Having Fun Yet?

Welcome...a very stormy winter evening welcome. Two items to write about tonight, both of historical importance...at least they are to me.

This is twice...twice in two weeks...and absolutely historical. Twice in two weeks we have had to cancel a church service. First, it was the Sunday before Christmas, Sunday morning and even the scheduled Christmas Program for Sunday evening (and we had to miss all those goodies with the social time that always follows). It seems a winter storm moved into the area on Saturday, following a week of below freezing weather (not necessarily normal for the Pacific NW), and it dumped 3-8" of snow, depending on where you were in Pierce County. Further snow was forecast for late Sunday afternoon (which brought another 5-8" of that white stuff...guaranteeing a "white Christmas"). Across Pierce County many churches, ours included, canceled services for that Sunday.

Now tonight we had to cancel our regular Wednesday night Bible study. Only tonight we were going to have our annual "Planning Session," where we all bring our calendars and together we lay out the year's activities for the church family. Well, tonight it is flooding across Western Washington, with extreme flooding for parts of Sumner, Orting, Fife and surrounding areas. Highway 410 through Sumner is closed (we currently have almost 100 road closures in the county, most of them around us), Orting is undergoing an evacuation, as is Fife south of I-5. We decided it was a wise choice to reschedule our Planning Session for next week and let people stay home...or evacuate as may be necessary.

I cannot remember the last time we canceled a church service, let alone two, on account of winter storms. Perhaps now we can just get on with our normal mild, wet winter for which the Northwest is known for.

Now for the second "historical" item. Tonight our church website has gone live (they call it "published" in the web world). The web site has been ready for several months, but I just did not have the time to finish the final details. Over the Christmas holidays I took the time to finish and proof the site (however, that doesn't mean it is perfect...this is a project in motion). Now I was ready to "publish." Well, it has taken almost a week to accomplish that intricate little detail. First our hosting site decided they could no longer host "Front Page" web sites as they have in the past (ok...perhaps we may be a bit antiquated, but we are still using "Front Page"). It took them almost three days to finally, finally, come to that conclusion. I'm not sure how many tech's I sent home with migraines as we tried to work out the bugs, only to find out their Linux system was incompatible with our Front Page. So on to find another hosting site. It then took them four days to work out the bugs, and tonight, a brilliant tech walked me through some final details (why couldn't the first tech tell me those things???)...and it was "published." Ok, so I lost most of you back there about fourteen paragraphs. Simply put, a week's work, lots of phone calls and emails, and we are "live."

Perhaps I have a few less hairs, but am delighted that we are now "on line." Perhaps you are reading this because of finding Valley Christian Center on line. Welcome...I'm so glad I'm finally here...and you are here. Let's have a great journey together. Come on back. I promise you I'm going to have some fun here. Just wait until I get warmed up! Why not join me. Besides, we're "The Happy Church."