I just took the 2 block walk from my office in downtown Excelsior to Dunn Brothers Coffee overlooking the lake and across the street from Excelsior Bay Books, my literary headquarters. And guess what (well, you already know) It is SNOWING! Oops, wait a minute, now it stopped. Oh well, the point is that it’s cold, windy and feels like winter. I haven’t done a wandering post for awhile but all of my writing has focused on the functional. But today I have some reprieve, last night I finished my final project paper for my Church History Class at Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary (PLTS).
I spent the morning doing some pre-freeze dog chores at home, draining hoses, filling holes, etc. I also took some time for reading, reflecting and prayer. All in all a very peaceful morning. This afternoon I’ve been spending some time looking back at the past year and how I’ve spent my time. It felt like I was pretty busy and it turns out I was. In the past ten months I’ve made over 60 appearances at different events as chaplain. I delivered 16 invocations, 15 military reintegration presentations, 7 retirement presentations, another 9 misc. Public Safety Ministries talks at church groups, civic organizations etc. and another dozen or so site visits and misc events.
I’ve also spent a lot of time building the business and taking care of administrative chores. The big news on that front is that I just recently received 501 (c)(3) tax exempt status. So now I am officially, according to the state of Minnesota and the IRS a: Minnesota Tax Exempt Non-Profit Corporation. (That means you can give PSMInc money and write it off, or if you already gave, now I got the papers saying you can deduct. More on that later as now I need to start venturing down the fundraising path.)
So I’ve got the seminary stuff on track, the business stuff taking shape and the outreach opportunities are in full swing. And soon we’ll have snow. I’m hoping to do more sleddog stuff this year, but I’ve got a lot of training to do (mostly me!)
That’s all for this wander, Take Care!
