theothegrey

Thanks for asking, Byron. We have not evacuated yet. The traffic in Houston has been a nightmare and we don’t think we can make it out with the kids. The local news has plenty of stories of people who sat overnight on the freeway going 18 miles in 8 hours. We’re waiting for the counterflow to open on the freeways to assess the situation. Our other option is just bracing ourselves for the worst. A couple of friends tried leaving last night with their young kids, but they couldn’t make it out with all the traffic around their neighborhood so they turned back.

Last night we packed, collected valuables, taped up the windows, stored water, and cleaned the yard for debris (potential missiles in a hurricane of this size). We also watched plenty of news http://www.click2houston.com/index.html.

Here’s the email I sent to our church leaders yesterday.

Hi everyone,

I hope you are all doing well. There’s a lot of stressed out people in Houston because of Rita. I was at the store last night and people had cleared out the water and were working into the canned goods. It was kind of eerie. I think everyone had some level of worry.

The staff team just got together to make some decisions regarding Hurricane Rita. Please note the following and communicate this to all your leaders and teams.
• All church activities have been cancelled for Friday and Saturday. This includes small group events Please help get the word out.
• I regret to say that the worship service this weekend is cancelled. If the conditions improve and the outlook is better, we plan for a combined service at 11AM with whoever is available. No preparation would really be needed for this, no worship team practice, etc. But we want to give people the freedom to make evacuation plans, especially those who are involved in running our regular worship services. Canceling the service was no easy decision.
• The church office will be closed on Friday and Saturday.

There are so many prayer requests related to all of this. Please be in prayer.
- Pray for the safe evacuation of effected areas.
- Pray for the protection of our homes, and more importantly our loved ones.
- Pray for our Kazakhstan mission team. We are scheduled to fly out Friday afternoon.
- Pray that we stand in faith and rest our hope in Jesus. Pray that we continue to be a voice of hope to others.
- Pray against panic.

We don’t know what will happen over the next few days, but our hope rest in the Lord. Be wise in how you act. We just had a retreat that encouraged us to live as a Gospel Community. Support each other during this time and be an encouragement.

In His Grace,
Ted

Please pray for us here in the Gulf Coast.

This past Monday I took Emi outside to play in the front yard while I gave the car a quick wash. Emi decided she wanted to stop playing with her bubble maker and help me. We’ve been washing the car together over the last couple of months. This time I let her use the hose. She was really good at following directions. She kept part of the car wet so the soap wouldn’t dry. But at one point she overshot the car and gave me a good spray. Then, I think it dawned on her. She had power. Whenever I got near her, she let me have it. She was laughing hysterically while she hosed me. “Daddy, I got you wet!”

It was a really good moment. For some reason, she totally disarmed me. She had me laughing. I managed to put on a serious face and told her to get back to work. She did. But I came to renewed appreciation for my station in life. It really has been stressful lately around the home and around the church. With all the responsibilities I have it can really feel heavy. But Emi really made me laugh. As hard as it’s been, I went to sleep on Monday feeling pretty thankful for her. She cracks me up sometimes and I think it’s a gift.

These pics are from a couple of months ago when my parents were visiting.

We escaped to San Diego for a few days to see family and to relax. I’ve been so tired I’ve been falling asleep at the computer. It’s happened to me three times in the last two weeks. It’s happened to me even while surfing on the internet for fun stuff. The third time it happened I fell asleep for about 30 minutes and I woke up with no idea what day it was or why I was sitting at the desk. I’ve been a walking experiment in sleep deprivation. San Diego was nice. It was a good time to get away and be quiet…quieter.

Amy and I are pretty out of shape these days because of the kids. But we managed to spend some time surfing on Monday with Carol who just happened to be visitng her parents in Carlsbad with her new baby. Here we are with our foam boards. Amy and I are still pretty whimpy surfers. We only get to do it about once a year. I found myself making all the same mistakes. But, we still had a great time.

While in San Diego I kept up with news about Katrina. It’s horrific.

Our church is housing some of the refugees in our classrooms and gym. We’re expecting more people from New Orleans this coming week.

Tomorrow, I’ll be leading our regularly scheduled worship service. I plan to lead Meta in a special time of prayer and a call to action. The mayor of Houston has urged local churches to get involved in donations and volunteer work. In light of the recent comments in the media about race and social class, I think it’ll be important for us to cross these divides and be the type of people Jesus has called us to be.

I’ve been struggling this week with whether or not to continue with the launch of our Fall messages series, Kingdom Stories. I was thinking of scrapping the message and devoting an entire service to prayer. But several people have advised me to stay the course and I value their opinion. The special prayer focus will probably be the right amount of time that visitors would feel comfortable trying to speak to God.