of rain, church, and insect bites

I woke up this morning, and it was raining. Normally, I would consider this kind of rain to be no-problemo, but here in Iowa, when it even kinda tries to rain, the drops are still MASSIVE. So I debated on going, calling to maybe get a ride from a church member, or waking up Jan or Jim, which I hated the thought of. But I managed to catch the storm, right between rushes of water downpouring form the sky and biked over to the CMA church (which they call C and MA... slightly adorable)

I went to Cornerstone Fellowship this morning, it's a CMA church here in Shenandoah. It was really cute, probably around 60 people were there. Kinda reminded me of Shepherd of the Valley in HR (not that I've been to that church often, but still...). After singing a few worship songs (and getting goodness-knows how many weird looks, haha) we breaked to "greet the people around us."

Now, normally, I would say that this is just saying hi and introducing yourself to the people around you. Not so here! Everyone shuffled around and said hi to everyone, even the worship team broke apart and mingled with everyone. It was really interesting. Most people were actually quite open to me and said hi, of course, wanting to know where I'm from and what I'm doing here. They were all shocked beyond their minds when I said I was from Oregon --  which is SOOooo far away, apparently, haha. One guy said that he and his wife vacationed in Waldport last summer... which is not exactly what I would call a vacation spot, but anyway! They all wanted to know what I was doing out here, how I heard about Shenandoah, and how I heard about Cornerstone, oh, and when I was moving out for good!!!

They lost their pastor a few weeks ago as he and his wife were called to New Hampshire, so they had a guest pastor from Nebraska this week. He taught a really good message on 1 Peter 2:9-12... all about accepting the call God has for your life. This again... interesting, must be a reason why I'm here then!

Also, I must say, I have the mosquito bite of the century right now. I caught the sucker when he was selecting a meal off my leg. It was a nasty smash, to say the least. But it hurt! The last 4 times I've been prey to the mosquitos, I've totally felt it! So not cool.... At first there was no swelling, but I really wanted to scratch it. However, thanks to the over-nerdy-ness that I gained thanks to BioIII with Dr Chestnut @ Belhaven, I try not to scratch bug bites, because well, it just spreads things around, and isn't good in general.  So I resisted and iced it (well as close as a refrigerated diet pepsi can get). Did that help? Yeah, I guess, and it really didn't start swelling up til later in the day. But now? Now I have this 2" diameter welt on my leg. It's quite attractive, let me tell you.

But count is up by 2 since the last time... making it, what? 7? Still not too bad, thankfully.

Not sure if I'll return to Cornerstone next week, might try out another service, or might go back because it's also the closest church to here and the farmhouse -- well, close is a relative term as everything is within easy walking distance and probably less than a mile.