Going for a walk with Luke is great for meeting people in the neighborhood. Walks are one of Luke’s most favorite things to do, so we’ve met quite a few of our neighbors. They’re a diverse bunch–young, old, all different walks of life and incomes. There’s a retired couple across the street, an older lady and her son next door and a mom and her children on the other side. Two houses down are a twentysomething couple and a roommate, and both the husband and the roommate are car enthusiasts. Justin (the husband) has a modified Mini Cooper and Brian (the roommate) drives a ’69 Camaro. They were installing a lip spoiler on the trunklid of the ’69 as Luke and I were walking yesterday, and we stopped and chatted for a little bit. It feels good to talk cars, even if only for a while. The fact that I had helped with John’s ’69 Camaro provided a neat common ground to start from.<\/p>\n
I guest-taught Sunday School yesterday morning. We’re going through 1 Peter, and my passage was chapter 3. The couple who oversees the class allows many guest leaders in an effort to cultivate teaching abilities that will be brought to bear later on. Diane and I had only been attending this particular class for a few months, so I was honored that they would ask me to guest-lead so soon. I was nervous, but Diane’s even keel and great advice about my lesson planning helped me through. And the class makes it easy–they’re all young married couples and aren’t bashful about engaging in discussion. I didn’t speechify too much but organized the time around a series of questions about the passage, an approach that seemed to work well. I told Diane last night that I’m not too proud to admit that despite my typical doom-and-gloom apprehensiveness beforehand, I was completely in the wrong, had a lot of fun and would gladly do it again. God continually shows His strength in the midst of my weakness.<\/p>\n