Moving Things Home

Twenty-one months ago, we rented a moving truck and moved a lot of personal belongings to Jay's internship site in Adamsville, Ohio. During this journey, there were certain educational and candidacy requirements to be completed. One of which was an internship serving at an Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) under the supervision of the congregation's pastor.

This assignment was very unique for Jay. He was assigned to a two-point parish in Adamsville, Ohio, which included New Hope Lutheran Church and Zion Lutheran Church. The congregations did not have a permanent pastor, so Jay was supervised by the serving pastor of Emmanuel Lutheran Church in Coshocton, Ohio. Even though Jay's supervisor was off-sight, he still had valuable communication and interaction with him. This was the perfect scenario for Jay because he isn't one to just dip his toes in the water, he likes to just jump in head first. So, this was not the typical internship assignment with the occasional preaching, assisting with service, observing baptisms and funerals, and getting to know the community. Jay wrapped himself around this community and gave a lot of himself. He preached every Sunday at both churches, lead all services, baptized several babies -including his nephew-and an adult, did several funerals, organized/led Bible Studies, confirmed a group of kids that included his eldest daughter, helped organize and teach Sunday School and a summer day camp, and just immersed himself into the community activities.

The first twelve months, Jay lived in Adamsville at the parish's parsonage. He'd come home one night a week and then we would go up for some weekends for church or community events and then church. We didn't go every weekend as Cassie & I deliver the weekend Bag full of grocery and retail sale fliers. To make our trips/visits easier, we had everything we needed there so we didn't have to pack suitcases every time we went. However, there were a few things we'd still have to pack and take, but for the most part everything was there - of course, Jay needed a stocked kitchen for his meals. When I would make something at home, I'd make a smaller portion for Jay to keep in his freezer for his next meal.



Jay's internship requirement/contract ended in August of 2008, but the parish didn't receive another intern for the 08'-09' academic year, so Jay was able to continue to serve them while finishing his senior year at Trinity Lutheran Seminary. It was a welcoming opportunity as it gave Jay an opportunity to continue in this vocation he has been called to, strengthening his abilities while he continued to preach and lead services, and it provided our family with an income during his senior year. Unfortunately, this relationship has to come to an end as this parish has Called a permanent part-time pastor (one of Jay's classmates) and Jay awaits a church to Call him and affirm his calling. May 24, 2009 was the official end of his contract with the Adamsville Parish, but he will continue to preach the next three Sundays to fill the gap until Mary is able to take her place there.

The parish congregation had a joint service this past Sunday and a potluck meal as an opportunity for the members to come together to say farewell. After our meal and photos with families, we headed over to the parsonage to pack up the last of things. Jay has been packing things and bringing them back to the storage unit over the last couple of months. But we needed to pack up the last of it so we could move it all out.

Well, on Monday, Memorial Day, we went back to Adamsville for the Memorial Day Service held at New Hope Cemetery and then attended the Adamsville Fire Dept.'s fish fry. Jay's parents went up with us so we could take multiple vehicles to haul our belongings back. We were able to load up all three vehicles to the max and bring back the rest of our stuff!!



Here we made good use of Mackenzie's petite stature and gave her some height with the cushions from the two swivel chairs that were coming home and then we piled all of Jay's trading card collection in the back of the truck's cab.



I think we used every inch and space available to stuff so we didn't have to make anymore moving trips.

Well, all our personal belongings have made their way back to storage. And now we have started packing things here on the home front even though we still don't know when and where we will be going.