Worship Service Cancelled

For the first time in my Christian life (and pastoral ministry) I experienced having to cancel the Sunday morning worship service. The entire state of North Dakota underwent a severe blizzard with over a half-foot of snow, sustained winds in excess of 25 mph and a wind-chill reaching -40! Since this all started Saturday afternoon and was scheduled to continue until Sunday evening, after consulting the elder board, we made the difficult decision to cancel our corporate worship service this past Sunday. We have a number of families that live out of town on farms who would have had a very treacherous (if not impossible) time making it to town Sunday morning and we have a number of elderly families who already feel uncomfortable venturing outside during the winter months. Many if not most churches in ND likewise cancelled their services and events for this past weekend. Although I believe it was the right thing to do given the circumstances, it was certainly a strange feeling to wake up Sunday morning and not have the ability to attend a worship service.

Suffice it to say, it has been cold in our neck of the woods. I think yesterday (Wednesday) was the first day since Saturday that anywhere in the state has had a high of above zero. We drove down to Bismarck on Monday (the main roads were cleared and the wind had died down) and we might have reached single digits below zero as a high. On the way down in the morning the car thermometer had a reading of as low as -19! Fortunately, we were able to safely travel there and back and were finally able to get some much needed shopping done. Although it wasn't as cold the previous weekend, we had been unable to travel due to icy roads.

Given the unpredictable weather, we decided to pick up an artificial tree instead of chancing it every year of being able to get down to Bismarck to get a fresh-cut one. Having spent seven years of my childhood in Virginia, we'd anually drive out to a Christmas Tree farm and chop down our own fresh-cut tree. We'd tromp through the dense rows of trees until we found the "perfect" one. Then Dad would slid underneath and cut it down with a saw. We'd drag it to the main road and wait for the tractor to drive by and give us a ride back to the parking lot. Of course my favorite part was getting hot apple cider once we got back to the car. Apparently those memories are not going to be able to be repeated in the Northern Plaines.

By God's Grace, Jeff