Reflections & Ramblings: Volume Seven

I.

No preschool today for Micah. That’s because yesterday someone backed into our car as Sarah was driving in the mall parking lot. Micah was with her at the time. No one was injured in the accident. It ended up being an off-duty police officer who accepted full responsibility for the accident.

Mall cops soon arrived at the scene to take pictures and take statements from all involved. They let Sarah know that they have account recorded on their mall security footage, should it need to be reviewed, too. But it doesn’t seem that will be necessary.

But this morning we cleaned out the car and got it ready for a tow truck to come pick up. We are supposedly going to get a rental car provided by the insurance company of the other guy. But we are waiting for all that to go through. Currently we have no vehicle. And Sarah is supposed to work this evening.

Even small accidents like this can have a dramatic impact on the daily life of families. Now Sarah is not able to drive to work, meaning we lose a significant amount of income. Supposedly the insurance company will reimburse us for this income lost. But still a major inconvenience.

Because the man who caused the accident has not reported it yet, or answered the calls from his insurance company, the insurance company is not accepting liability and therefore unwilling to provide us a rental car. They will not provide us one until they talk with him and confirm details of the accident.

So, that means we are basically forced to get a rental car ourselves, front the money and then get his insurance company to reimburse use for that as well. Again, a major inconvenience. Thankfully we have a credit card and are a middle class family. If we were poor and/or had no credit card, this would not be feasible for us and it would be more than an inconvenience. It would be devastating for us financially.

That’s all it takes. One small thing like a cop backing into your car because he wanted that parking spot he saw a while back.  The next thing you know, you can’t go to work, your kid isn’t going to school.

II.

In other news, we got a phone call today letting us know that Micah’s bus will come tomorrow to take him to and from school. Good timing, I suppose. That means tomorrow he’ll ride the bus for the first time. He’s already been talking about it. I think he’s going to really like it. I hope so, at least. You just never know with something like this until it happens.

This will really make things easier for me because now I won’t have to lug Ezra back and forth with me. It also opens up a window of time for me, not having to drive back and forth to school and back.

This preschool thing is pretty great.

III.

Yesterday our church community did something pretty neat. They officially commissioned the start of a new church in a city just outside of Omaha where we live. In churchy lingo, we say that that a new church was planted because we treat it as a living organism, needing to be properly taken care of and nurtured to remain healthy and not die.

I’ve never been a part of a church that planted another church while I attended there. I’ve been incredibly impressed with the leadership and foresight of this entire process. They don’t just take one person with a desire to be a pastor and start a new church and throw him into a community and say “Go for it!” No. Our church took on a church-planting resident and made him part of the church staff. Preparing him for what it will look like to start a new church, and prepping our congregation for the future plant.

So we as a church got to know this pastor, we got to hear him preach. He participated as an integral staff member in many ways. Then, when the time came they figured out the right spot for the new church to be located and asked for people living in that area to commit to attending this new church plant and help it kick off to a healthy and successful start. That ended up meaning that over 100 individuals and 60 children would leave our church community to help start the new one. The new church would also absorb some of our current staff and leadership as well. This makes for an exciting transition, but also for many people, kind of sad because we’re losing so many great people and families.

It also means that for our church, which currently has had two Sunday services, now goes down back to one service. That means lots of logistical changes. And I’ve been blown away with how the staff has prepared for all the changes and shifts. They’ve kept us in the loop when we needed to know things. And things seem to be moving forward quite well.

So yesterday our church brought up all those leaving to go to the new church, prayed over them, and commissioned them as they start First City Church in Bellevue, Nebraska.

We were also able to give them $70,000 to help them finance all the things they’ll need to jumpstart a sustainable church. This is incredible and I’ve never witnessed such a thought out and great start to a new church.