It's been an unusual week here in big D.  We had snow on Monday night.  At 10PM.  And the whole neighborhood came alive with kids going out to build snowmen etc.  It was very excellent packing snow.  It's supposed to snow again tonight.  Meanwhile I have been battling the biggest head and chest cold that has ever descended upon me.  It is just taking a while to run its course, and although I was slowed down by it some the last couple of days, I am feeling quite a bit better today.

But that's not the reason I called this entry 'Back in the Saddle'.  I called it that because I was blessed with the opportunity to preach at our church home away from home this past Sunday - Faith Lutheran, Grand Prairie TX www.faithlutherantx.org

It was such a good feeling to have the opportunity to preach and share the gospel with God's people.  I am blessed that the Board of Elders there has welcomed me to be a sort of pastoral assistant to help teach some Bible classes and occasionally preach and other ad hoc stuff that Pastor Brady throws my way.  It is a great outlet and wonderful balance to all the very technical linguistic and textual analysis training I am still working on here at GIAL.

Other than that, not much new to report here.  Health has returned to our home (aside from the pesky lingering cold).  Maya is halfway through Second Language and Culture Acquisition (SLACA) where she is now practicing how to structure your own self-directed learning program by working with a Swahili speaker (I did that last fall).  Maya's skill in organzing and cataloging data is really shining through - which is great - because I was (am) particularly weak in that area, so it'll be great to be a team in ministry and have our weak areas meshed so nicely with each other's strengths.  God is good.  Have a good week.