GENERAL STUFF

It's been a busy few days around here. Wednesday, Mrs. Ref and I drove over to Red Lodge for the Celebration of New Ministry of our good friend Jane. We met her in Absarokee (pronounced Ab-sor-kee) for a decent lunch at a place called Calamity Jane's (no relation, I'm sure). After eating, we made the trek down to Red Lodge ... or maybe it was "up" to Red Lodge, I'm not sure how the elevation thing works over there. On the way we were stopped by construction. We spent a good ten minutes waiting for the nice person with the Stop/Slow sign to let us through. Since Jane was leading the way, the sign lady and Jane got to chatting and I witnessed the handing over of a business card.

Way to go, Jane! Let me know if she shows up at any of your four parishes.

While sitting there, I turned to Mrs. Ref and said, "I think it'd be pretty funny if the bishop drove up behind us."

But that didn't happen, and we were allowed through. A little farther down the road and we were stopped again; and I noticed that the good bishop's car was immediately in front of Jane. Good to know that the two major players in the service, and one minor player, were all stuck in the same place.

Anyway, we arrived, got things settled, and the service and reception were both lovely.

We spent the night at Jane's place, because I was not making the 3+ hour drive home at 9 p.m. Got home the next day, only to get ready for our trek to Deer Lodge.

Mrs. Ref and I have an appointment with St. James in our official capacity as Commission on Mission Planning representatives. This will have been our third presentation, which means I'm finally getting comfortable with it. Their vicar has said that good things are happening there, so we hope to build on that. We'll leave later today and return home tomorrow afternoon.

In other non-church news, I don't know if the fires in Montana have subsided at all, but I do know that there has been a change for the better in the weather. We actually received a winter storm warning this weekend for the "higher elevations" (which always cracks me up because I'm already living at 5200 feet). But snow is expected for above 6000 feet, and rain in the lower places.

I heard it rained out east, so hopefully that will help the people dealing with the Derby Mountain fire. Looking out my window, it is currently overcast and drizzly. So I think things are looking up.

And back to church news, we received a sizable donation from a guest at St. Paul's towards a new carpet. In case you don't know, the people of Virginia City are very proud of their past. So proud, in fact, that they make a nice little living as a "living ghost town." One of the things they work very hard at is preserving the historical accuracy of the buildings in town. Which means a person needs to make sure they don't mess with too much; don't want any of that modern stuff, you know. After being here for only five months, I was given an award from the Virginia City Preservation Alliance for basically doing nothing to the church.

Can you say, "Welcome to VC. Don't mess with anything."

Well . . . I am now that much closer to tearing out the 100+ year old carpet and putting in some new stuff. This could be interesting. I'll keep you posted.

And now . . . time to get ready to leave for Deer Lodge.