long time

It feels like a long time ago that I truly posted last (other than the two videos of Aidan, that is). We've done and been through a lot in the past month or so. For some of it, we have pictures that we'll be posting, for others we have more feelings and things to express via words that we do pictures. First things first though, I feel as if I need to ask you for something. Please be praying for my family and a wise direction to follow as the LORD directs us. We desire to bring Him glory above all else, and we are having the privilege of being in the middle of a fairly major trial involving our church. There has been a lot of upheaval over the past few months. The elder board asked our senior pastor to step down to be shepherded through some issues they'd all been seeing for a long time. Randy Murphy decided to go ahead and take his family elsewhere. Our prayers and well-wishes go with them. We, as a body, are still trying to deal with what that all means, and yet there is more upheaval to come. We need to have a new senior pastor, and there will be another associate pastor position created to lessen the burden of responsibilities that the senior pastor has to deal with. Not only this, there are other things in the works right now that have not been shared with the congregation, and I have been asked not to divulge that information with anyone, spare my wife, so I will not loosen that bond of confidentiality here. I will only discuss it here for others to read once the elders have brought they're direction to the congregation as a whole, which should only been in another two weeks, at the latest, I am told. This hits Amy and I hard, though, as we now have to decide what role we are to play in the future of our church, ncc. We've been dedicated to sticking the storm out and seeing where the LORD lands us all, but now toward what will hopefully be the end of the storm we see another storm on the horizon and we're having to brace ourselves for it. Do we take up positions to guide people through the rough patch ahead? Do we abandon ship like so many others seem to be about to do? These are questions that need answers, and so I ask that you'd be in prayer with us about what the LORD would have us do to glorify Him most in the coming weeks, months, and seasons.