More snow, more neighbors

Sure enough, while shoveling the latest snowfall Saturday morning, I had the chance to meet another neighbor in our development. He actually used his snow blower to clear our the end of our driveway, establishing what Filipino's call an utang na loob, a debt of gratitude. Though not as strong in US culture, it does open the door for us to do something in return for them which hopefully will lead to building another bridge with them. Clearing 6-8 inches off of our short, single-car driveway is knocked out in a few hours, the church on the other hand...

A lot of us probably don't realize the time and effort required to prep the church lot on snow days and the lengths we go to, to have it ready with as little disruption to the church's regular schedule. Take this last storm for example. As soon as the storm had passed, our snow clearing team started work almost immediately. That had them starting to work at 12:30am on Saturday morning. They had the lot cleared by around 8-9am. There's nothing like seeing the high contrast of several inches of snow against the black ashpalt of a driveway and parking lot.

As I've posted previously, we try to leave the cancellation of Sunday services as our absolute last option. So when it takes upwards of 8-9 hours to clear our parking lot, there will be Sundays when the lot is not completely cleared. We accept that, figuring that we can all wear boots to church if we have too and if ever someone doesn't feel comfortable being out in snowy weather, we highly encourage them to follow their intuition and stay home that week.

Fortunately, we have a dedicated snow clearing crew and most Sundays that I can remember, the lot has been as good as it could be in light of the circumstances. I appreciate the service and sleepless nights the team puts in as service to our church.