Moving from place to place always seems to involve packing up at the old place and unpacking at the new place and that's what I'm in the middle of doing now. Unpacking and trying to decide where to put stuff so I can find it. I have a new configuration, a new set of book shelves to fill and trying to decide what is the most logical place for books is a major part of the unpacking.
I have a system for going out, and it works pretty well at the other end too, but it's still hard. I use old calendars with blank spaces for the days of the month to identify which books are going into which box. I used April May and June in an old Williamsburg VA calendar. So box one was A1 for April first block. I would right the category of books that went into the box on the page square, then I would make a little address label sticker on the box of what was in it, and mark the box on several sides with the letter and number of this box.
At the other end, I would look for the box with the books I needed first. In this case it's M16, for May 16 where I put my hymnal and worship planning resources. The pile is six boxes high and about six rows out from the wall. Of course the wall side boxes can't be gotten to and I know now that's where M16 is hiding. Hopefully I'll find it soon. I may have to move the boxes around like that old slide the squares up and down and back and forth to recover the picture. Or it looks like a rubic's cube and I have to figure a way to slide the wall side to the open side, a box at a time.
The Conference took care of moving my office from one church to this one, but I couldn't keep track of the books on and off the truck. The crew was a great one, and they came early were done in less than an hour, I was ready for them, and they unloaded the books at the other end with just as much efficiency. I was much smoother than I remember. I'll have to tell you that story....
Ten years ago, the Bishop decided to move me before the church was finished being expanded. During construction the church office and my office were in an old construction trailer, which was kind of exciting, but my books were put in a tractor trailer truck parked on the lot while we were in the construction phase. When it came time to move my office to the new church, we had to dig through the tractor trailer to find my books, and some of them had been rained on and snow covered while still in their boxes. The tractor trailer was not water tight apparently, and that's why it was rented as storage units, I guess. Anyway, unloading those books at the other end proved to be a challenge. So this recent move was much better.
Now I'm working on where they go on the new shelves.
I don't think Moses had this problem when he saw the burning bush and was told to go back to Egypt, all he got to take was his rod he used for shepherding, that had been turned into a snake to make a point. Abraham took along a bunch of stuff, including his nephew Lot, when he was asked to venture toward the promised land. Jonah was thrown overboard, swallowed by a big fish and barfed up on the beach before he went to Nineveh, so he didn't have much to pack, so the adventure of going to a place God calls us to go to is always a unique event.
I'm in day two, unpacking books and meeting new people and having conversations with my staff and trying to get used to new surroundings. May God help us in the adventure. And Sunday is coming.....
Pastor Jeff
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