Spring is Springing

I haven't posted for awhile, but no good excuse.  I just let the blog slip.  On the other hand, I've been pretty active in the last weeks. 

Moving Day

The weather is changing here in Northwest Indiana.  It's the oddest thing to have a few inches of snow one day and 60 degrees the next.  There are a lot of people taking advantage of the return of nicer weather, though.  Richard, Lisa and Daryl sold their house and I helped them move last week on a day between the frigid temperatures.  I'm sorry to lose them from the neighborhood around the church, but they are staying in South Bend and give me the opportunity to make some more connections in another neighborhood.

The INSPIRE Grant is all in place (God bless the NRC), signed and waiting so the garden is on the list.  I ordered the lumber to build the beds and the group is all coming out Saturday afternoon to build.  We should be able to put those together in short order, but don't have dirt to fill them.  The city won't have compost until mid-April and I think we need to get the beds established before that date.  I'm hoping Chuck can help me out with some top-soil at little to no cost, but at least we'll have the beds.  There is a lot of enthusiasm for the garden and I look forward to it being a productive experience.  It seems as if there is a neighborhood association slowly emerging from the garden group which makes me happy as that is the ultimate goal.

I worked for months to put together an initiative on vacant and abandoned houses to draw together congregations and nonprofits from all over the city.  I think, with the help of Fr. John, Wendy and Gene, that we have something to roll out and I look forward to bringing that to the table on Tuesday at the Clergy Caucus.  Basically, we're going to put it back on the congregations to voice their issues and alternatives which will then be brought back to the larger group and then on to the mayor's task force. 

I'm doing a lot of other things, but this blog post is too long already.  I'll post again next week.  Remember Listening Training at Niles Pres. this Saturday 9-11.