Just Stuff

When good eggs go bad!!

First of all, to answer a couple of questions that were posed from my last post:

DCE is short for Director of Christian Education. He oversees the Board of Education, teaches bible study classes and one class of confirmation. He also works with the teenagers and organizes their activities. For that, he was making in excess of $80,000 a year, until the budget was cut.

When I was a kid growing up in that church we had larger numbers of young people than there are now and there were young couples who VOLUNTEERED to do those things. Then at one time we had a seminary student who was doing an internship, a vicar for a period of time and various volunteers throughout the years. Then this guy came along about 15 years ago, wormed his way in and has managed to decimate the budget over the years - along with other things of course.

It's extremely difficult to get anyone to volunteer at our church due to some past history of staff members. The office manager that up and quit was making $25,000 a year, working four days a week for six and a half hours a day along with a full benefit package. And she didn't know diddly about running a computer so she was virtually no help to our current minister who is very tech oriented and does most everything electronically. She was constantly crabbing about how overworked she was, which she wasn't, and also was totally inept at keeping confidential information confidential, which she should have been fired for. Members would volunteer to do things to help her out and then she would go and redo everything because it was never done good enough and then she would criticize. People finally got tired of all that and quit volunteering. When her hours were cut, she got mad and walked out making a statement that the church would never be able to operate without her. There's lots more about her I could go into, but it's not important anymore because she's gone. It was difficult to deal with her in any manner due to the fact that her husband was president of the council for 6 of the 7 years that she was employed in that position. And her son was an elder so that didn't help either.

So, on we go, figuring things out and making baby steps to the positive - hopefully.

So what are your plans for Easter? I don't have to cook this year!!! Since Lovely Daughter and Sven moved into a big house in town I've turned all the holidays over to them. I will, of course, bring some dishes and some goodies, but they're in charge of the main preparation and the cleanup. Should be fun as some of their neighbors are coming over.

She has the most interesting neighbors. It's a bunch of brothers - I think 5 or 6 - from way far northern Minnesota, up by the Canadian border. They're all in their 20s and 30s and grew up in a family of 17 children. They've been on TV on the Learning Channel and Discovery on "Kids by the Dozen" and have their own website. One of the older brothers owns the house and a construction company and as the younger boys get to be college age they cycle through the house, attend school and work for him. They are the nicest young men and so fun to visit with. They get started telling stories about growing up in a house with 17 kids and it's hilarious. Can you imagine sitting down to a meal with 19 people at the table? Or cooking for that many on a regular basis? I get tired just thinking about it. I've met their parents and they are wonderful people. Mom is slim and trim and looks so young I can't believe it. So that should be a fun day.

I went to town yesterday to run errands and when I came home Ole was on the lawnmower and had the entire yard (5 acres) cleaned up. It looks so nice and is really greening up. But you should have seen Ole when he came in. You couldn't tell what color he was (chuckle) from all the dust and dirt that had blown up on him. So this afternoon I'm hoping to get out and clean up some of my flowerbeds as the little green things are popping up there also. But first I have to make some homemade buns, a key lime pie and a salad for tomorrow.

Guess I had better get busy, huh?

Have a Blessed Easter, everyone.

Love you all, Lena

A Pain in the Neck

I have a pain in the neck - and it's not even Ole!!

Since retirement Ole and I have become quite active in church. He's a trustee and I'm a member of the council. At this point I'm not sure this is a good thing as our church has huge financial problems. I won't go into all the boring details other than to say we have staff that is too highly compensated and the previous council didn't take care of things the way they should have. We have a membership of just over 300 folks with a DCE that makes more than the minister. The DCE's salary and the secretary's salary add up to 67% of our total annual budget. It's hard to keep the lights and the heat on in the winter time under those circumstances.

Part of the problem, up until two years ago, was that the secretary's husband was the president of the council and her son was an elder. At the last meeting of the year where her husband was president, before he stepped down from office, he pushed through a $6,000 a year raise for his wife. She only works 4 days a week, 8:30 to 4:00 - or is SUPPOSED to work those hours. Of course he had his little toadies all lined up ahead of time to make the motion and second it immediately that this would pass. He did the same thing for the DCE only the raise was bigger. By the way, both of these positions include huge benefit packages $$$$$!!

Four years ago, when our new minister came, he didn't want to live in the church furnished parsonage so we sold it to the tune of $385,000. There was acreage that went along with this house as it's out in the country in a beautiful setting. Spending has been out of control for so long that by this time all of our savings had been used up and instead of investing the income from the parsonage the council at that time decided to use that money to keep the church's head above water. Due to over compensated people and champagne taste with a beer income, the church has $25,000 of that $385,000 left. At the current rate of spending the council figured they could keep the doors open possibly another 6 months, so maybe it was time to do something!! Gee, do ya think?

Last fall Ole was asked to be on the budget & finance committee. Gee, didn't I promise I wasn't going to go into all the details? I lied!!

Anyway, he went around the community and visited 7 other churches about our size. They shared their financial information with him and of those 7 churches we were the only one that had a paid full-time DCE and a paid secretary, both with huge benefit packages.

To make a long story short, (ha, ha) the only way to come up with a balanced budget - one that will match the giving income that we have - is to cut the hours and salaries of the DCE's position and the secretary's position. The secretary got mad and quit and the DCE negotiated and is now working 20 hours a week and currently making a salary of $47,000. Can you imagine that for a 20 hour week? The committee has budgeted so much money for the DCE's annual salary and have told him that when it's gone - it's gone and he won't get a pay check. We have no other choice because there's no money left - unfortunately instead of being understanding about it he's being a real a- -! He's certainly not practicing the christian values that he's been preaching for so long, and in fact, stood up in front of everyone at one voter's meeting and yelled at everyone that they were a "faithless bunch of no goods!"

Anyway - back to where I started. I have a pain in the neck. I went to the last council meeting and came out of it with such a terrible headache I felt like my eyeballs were going to fall out of my head. That was three weeks ago. I still have the headache. Yes - I've had my blood pressure checked and it's fine. I think I just have so much stress in my neck and it's so tight right now that I can't get rid of the headache. I've been to the chiropractor several times and he's gotten my neck and upper back to move. It feels okay for a day or so and then I'm right back to square one.

This is no fun. I know - I take things far to seriously - but that's just me. Politics and church are not a good mix. Unfortunately there's way too much of it at least in this church.

Love Lena

Once Upon a Time in the Far Nort'land

Once upon a time in the far nort'land there was a little country church that had been around since the late 1800s. It had a membership of around 350 folks whose generations had attended since the beginning of time. Now over the last years membership had fallen off, so as a result so had involvement. And also as a result so had the giving (income).

In any organization there is always a certain nucleus of ladies who get all the lady things done that need to be done in a church. They're the ones that have the time and the desire and like doing those kinds of things. Usually it's the "older" ladies of the church because in this day and age the younger ones are still busy with their families and most of them hold down a second job. They're just not available during the day to do a lot of things.

Now also in this church there is Francine - who calls herself the office manager - and has been involved with this church in various capacities all of her life. Francine is a person who likes to be in control of everything, even if it doesn't or shouldn't concern her. She will do anything she has to in order to get the results that she wants including lying about facts and people. She's very skilled at manipulation and twisting things to make people believe what she has to say and to make herself look good and someone else look bad.

We have an organization at our church called "Ladies Aid" (LWML for the rest of you Lutherans.) Francine has been the president several times for several years per term. This last time she was in that position for 6 years. The bylaws tell us that you can only hold an office for a maximum of two terms but nobody had bothered to investigate that.

I was asked to finish out the treasurer's position for the term of a lady (Gene) who moved away, and then unfortunately (I say that now) I was elected to the position for another term. I knew that Francine and Gene were very good friends, but I didn't know just how good. Gene was Francine's "toadie" and would help Francine bull through anything that Francine wanted. Francine would have things all lined up and done, then tell Gene and another friend (Fern) that she had to have that particular issue voted through without any controversy, and it would happen. After I took over the position of treasurer Francine found out she couldn't run me like she had run Gene. That set the stage for trouble and she began "setting me up" to look bad, which she was very successful at.

I won't go into all the details, as there are just too many of them and I could write a book about what's happened over the last two years. But here's the story of the straw that broke the camel's back:

The Ladies Aid does various fund raisers throughout the year so that we have money to do different things for the church. One of the things we do is pay for the photocopy machine that Francine has in her office. It's got bells and whistles on that you wouldn't believe - far more copy machine than what our little church office needs. That was something that Francine bulled through with Gene and Fern. Anyway, the monthly bills come to the church office and onto Francine's desk where she proceeds to keep them until about the 12th of the month. Payment is due by the 15th, so by the time I get the bill there's no way I can write a check and it will get there in time. This has gone on for the last 10 months. When we were gone this summer that added even more chaos to the situation because we didn't come back until the bill was two weeks overdue. Even though the president of our Ladies Aid had the checkbook and has signature power, Francine didn't bother to ask her to pay the bill. She just stuck it in my mailbox and waited for me to come back. By that time the collection agency called me and got on my case and that's about the time I started investigating the leasing contract for this machine and came across a whole additional bunch of SHIT (there's no other word to describe it) that Francine has pulled for her own benefit and definitely not for the church's.

This all resulted in a meeting that consisted of TWO sales reps from this company, Francine, the president of the church council and myself. When I came home and told Ole about it he was aghast (he's a trustee of the church and on the budget committee.) He said I was double-teamed by the sales reps. At one point in time I shook my finger at the sales reps and said, "I know what you're doing. I'm married to a man that was a sales rep for 30+ years. He knows all those tricks but had too much integrity to use them. That's why he was successful and was able to retired at age 55. Nobody likes to be tricked!" Then they backed off a bit. I won't go into all the details of the contract that Francine signed two years ago, but anybody who would written a contract like that is a real crook.

Anyway, Francine had what's called buyer's remorse. She had purchased something (the contract) and was going to do everything in her power to make herself look good and not admit that she had made a huge mistake. The end result was that she questioned MY integrity in front of all these people and if I had responded we could have gotten into quite a verbal fist-a-cuffs. I wouldn't stoop that low. I was called a liar, irresponsible, etc., etc.

By the time I got home that day I was in tears and a wreck. This is the type of thing that everyone who tries to do something has to deal with - not to this degree, but maybe a different level. She will twist the words that people say to make herself look good and that person look bad. The end result is that I have resigned from my position as treasurer of "Ladies Aid," and also from being the webmaster of the church web site. I won't even go into all the wrong information that she has given me to post on the web page and then when it gets up there she'll tell me it's wrong, as will other folks who look at the web page.

There's been a lot of other stuff too, but I won't bore you with the details. The end result of all of this is that I wasn't feeling well and ended up in my doctor's office where he told me my blood pressure was 170/106. I have NEVER in all my life had BP problems, in fact the nurse has usually had to take it a couple of times because it runs so low normally. So the doc put me on medication, which makes me feel even worse than before I started taking it. My BP is lower, but I can't function otherwise - so this morning I didn't take it to see how I would feel throughout the day. Tomorrow I'm going to call him and tell him he needs to find something different for me. When I'm on this stuff (I think it's spelled liciniprol - I'm too lazy to look it up) I am so profoundly fatigued I can hardly lift my feet off the floor to walk. I feel like a zombie. I can't live like that.

So that's why I've been absent. My mind has been in a fog with church politics and ugly medication. Thanks to all of you who sent me an email wondering about me.

Love you all,

Lena

I've Been Inspired

I've been inspired by Stitchin' by the Lake whose most recent blog was written about small country churches - small in membership, not necessarily small in physical size.

I've told you previously that I was raised Norwegian Lutheran. At least that's how it ended up because my mother was raised Swedish Lutheran and my father Norwegian Lutheran. Back in their day there was a lot of segregation among the Swedes and the Norwegians. When my family finally settled in Small Town, USA, it was a community of Germans and there was no Swedish or Norwegian Lutheran church, not that it mattered at that point anyway. Just that it was Lutheran was more important. Here's a picture of what the church looked like when we moved here.


It was a country church built in 1892 on the bank of the same river Ole and I live by. It currently has a membership of approximately 250 active members. Below is a shot of the sanctuary. I just love the old Gothic design and was very sad when the council decided to abandon this church due to the fact that it flooded so frequently.

They decided to build a new, modern style building right in Small Town, and not that it's not beautiful in it's own right, it just lacks the character and the feel of the old church. I attended Sunday School there, was confirmed there and Ole and I were married there. We don't have the long history with this church that some of the community members do - some of my friends' families go back three and four generations.

When Lovely Daughter was ready to start confirmation we ended up leaving and transferring to a very large church (5000 membership) because of political reason. Church politics can get even uglier than regular politics. The minister at that time was busy driving all the young families away due to his dictating attitude. I won't go into the details, but over 50% of the young families left at that point.

As the years went by and Ole and I were lost in the huge membership we decided that we needed something a bit more personal. We made the move back to our little church and it was like old home week. Many of the young couples that had left when we did were in the process of returning also, and it was so nice to be warmly welcomed by many of the "old timers." At this point "that" minister had died. There had been several since him, but we returned about the time a new minister had accepted the call to our church.

He's a wonderful person - a 40-something family man who has had a "real" life prior to becoming a minister. He's an ex-marine that saw combat and didn't go into the ministry until he was 40 years old.

Stitchin' by the Lake wrote about the strong family feeling of a small church. I must agree with her - there's always someone you can count on to help you out in time of need. When Ole and I were being flooded so badly this past spring we received a number of calls not only from Pastor Mark, from the secretary at the office, but also from various parishioners making sure that we were okay, asking if we needed anything, or if they could come out and help with anything. That left such a warm feeling - knowing that you weren't alone in the battle and that you had people you could call on if needed.

A number of years ago a cousin and I went on a road trip back to the area where our parents had grown up. We decided on Sunday morning that we would attend that old Norwegian Lutheran church that our fathers had attended (our fathers were brothers). Now, mind you, neither of us had been back there for years - probably not since we were teenagers. Now we're both (ahem) "old bags." This is a tiny, little church, way out in the country that you have to drive on 10 miles of gravel roads to get to. Our grandparents are all buried there. We were late arriving and walked in just a couple of minutes before the service was to start. Believe me, we were very aware of all the looks and whispering that went on. But when the service was over and it was time for coffee down in the basement, you can believe that we were greeted by every single person in attendance and they ALL knew who we were!! We were the daughters of Arnold and Manfred and had to give a report on each member of our families. When it was time to go we both received hugs and warm greetings and lots of invitations to come back.

There's nothing like a small church on Sunday morning.

Love Lena