Moment Aside

Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land I will show you.

Genesis 12:1

A strange thing happened to me on Monday, March 24th, 2008. I was called in to the District office and was told that I would be moving. I was not given any details about where until the next day. When I found out the next day I could not tell anyone where I was moving until I actually went to visit the new church, which happened on April 7th. The next Sunday I announced that I would be leaving in June and going to Sterling City, TX. In case you do not know where that may be it is up and out into West Texas 45 miles northwest of San Angelo. It is about 41/2 hours from Austin. Thus the scripture verse above.

God has blessed Merlene and me with nine wonderful years as your pastor family. You have truly blessed our lives in many and various ways. We count you as good friends and will carry many fond memories with us for the rest of our lives.

It never gets easy to leave and we have had that experience 3 times now. But it is a part of the system that we belong to. It is called the itinerate system, meaning that we are called occasionally to go on to a new church to pastor. This is done by the Bishop in consultation with the cabinet (District Superintendents).

I am pleased by the fact that a good friend of mine will be following me as pastor of Covenant. Her name is Valerie Sansing. I have known and participated in her ministry development and I have come to know her well. I know that you will come to admire her.

So in the next few weeks it is my hope that we will spend quality time in saying our goodbyes to each other. You will continue to be in our prayers and we hope that we will continue to be in yours. We will look forward to the day when we will be able to see many of you again. We will be retiring in a few years and plan to settle at Lago Vista.

God bless you and thank you for nine wonderful years. I do hope to see you all in church on Sunday. Church is that place where God’s saints gather together as His family and worship our Lord Jesus Christ. What a great way to begin a new week.