Greetings in Christ, all!
Well, I just completed my first week at our two parish families and it has been quite the journey!
It’s kind of funny, but just 11 days ago, I was tooling along in Lenawee County, never envisioning that I would move or that my life would be any different than it had been for the last seven years. One phone call and ten days later and I am moved into a new rectory and serving two new parish Families…wow!
I wanted to tell you a couple things about me and then make two requests of you.
First, I wear two hearing aids. My hearing is pretty bad and I’m probably going to ask you to repeat yourself a lot. Be assured it’s probably not your fault, I just can’t hear very well!
Second, as many of you know this, I have a dog and his name is Marius (Mar-ee-us). He is a rescue dog; he was abandoned twice and I tend to take him everywhere. He is very loving, playful and spoiled rotten. Also, an interesting side note: if he hears music, he tends to howl along with it. ☺
There’s lots more to share with you and I will try to use bulletin articles to give you bits of information about myself. I can’t wait till the day that we are no longer strangers and we live the bond that Jesus created us for. In the meantime, bulletin articles will have to do.
Two things I’d like to ask of you: prayer and patience. Please pray for me, pray that I serve God and you well, pray that I listen for and obey God‘s voice and pray that I figure out how to do all of this. Fr. Dan and I are replacing three priests and while I’ve done this before, I assure you it can be a tough adjustment and we need your prayers. Please know Fr. Dan and I will pray for you.
I hinted at this last week a bit, but I’ll also need your patience. It’ll take a bit for us all to settle into this new reality and it will take a while for me to learn everything I need to know. In the meantime, I will make plenty of dumb mistakes and I invite you to laugh with me about those inevitable errors that are a part of people loving God and each other.
May God bless our broken and beautiful efforts to love him and each other well!
Fjk