Despite the illness that has dominated this weekend, I do have some great news–my first mystery novel is available for purchase! I’m pretty excited about it. It’s entitled After the Service, and here’s my awesome promo text:

When David Kelter started his internship at Seattle’s Grace Baptist Church, he thought it would be a fairly useful experience, if not very exciting. He would get the credits he needs to finish up his senior year at Seattle Pacific University, he’d have a chance to gauge his interest in pastoral ministry, and maybe—just maybe—he’d meet some girls.

But when David stumbles upon the body of a troubled parishoner after the service one Sunday, things change. Now he finds that his internship duties include things like catching a killer, saving the church–and staying alive.

Learn more at the book’s website www.gracebaptistseattle.com.

Things have been rather unhealthy around here recently. About two weeks ago, I came down with nasty sore throat. That hung around for about a week, at which point Lorraine promptly got food poisoning and missed school on Monday and Tuesday. Things seemed just about recovered for her by Friday, though. But apparently I picked up some kind of virus, because by the end of 3rd period that day, I was just about dead. I came home and slept for the rest of the school day. When Lorraine got home, our conversation went something like this:

LORRAINE: Here, drink this cup of water.
TIM: I don’t want to.
LORRAINE: But you need to, drink it.
TIM: Fine.
[Tim drinks entire cup of water.]
TIM: That was too much water.
[Tim vomits.]
[Tim vomits again.]
[Tim vomits again.]
[Tim vomits again.]

So, yes, that’s been lots of fun. The real irony is that I’m in the middle of teaching a unit on the immune system in Life Science.

Yesterday, we took the jr high & high school students to Familia Santa Clara, a sort of group home/orphanage for battered, abandoned or orphaned children. It’s a pretty remarkable place, with over 60 children, and run by just a married couple with whatever assistance they can get from the community. The students gave them a bit of that assistance yesterday, painting an outside wall, playing soccer with the kids, and drawing pictures with them. We were just there for an hour and a half, but it was a really good experience for our students and, hopefully, the kids at Familia Santa Clara.

We’re hopeful that next year, the school will have an ongoing relationship with them, and that we’ll be able to spend a lot more time there, and do a lot more for them than just paint a wall. Previous service days have consisted of people coming in from different ministries & projects and talking about them. It’s exciting to finally be giving the students an opportunity to actually serve, rather than just hear about other people serving.

Unfortunately, our camera’s batteries died just before this, so we took no pictures. We’ll try to beg, borrow or steal some from the others who were there, though.