Tuesday, December 5, 2017

December 5 - “Wifi Woes, stenciling, and a baked potato”

I met the Comcast Cable guy at church yesterday.  We were just informed by our retreat center coordinator that the wifi up there hasn’t been working for some time.  So long in fact, that she didn’t even know there was supposed to be wifi.  The new modem in the worship center has been working great, but for some reason the signal isn’t strong enough to penetrate the tall metallic walls of the center upstairs.  It hasn’t been a problem for the homeschool group using the building every Friday.  They have just piggybacked off of someone’s phone signal.  And I guess the groups coming for retreats have done the same.  But this Saturday is the Bethlehem Street Market craft fair, and we have more vendors than ever before, many of whom are stationed inside those impenetrable retreat center walls.  They use wifi to connect to the internet so they can use their charge card devices.   So it is imperative we have it up and running. 

Taylor, the young technician they sent out, did a great job.  He identified all the connections we have up there for me, separating telephone from cable, and showing me what we really didn’t need.  The old cable modem was not operating at all.  Come to find out, the power cord had been frayed and was almost completely cut in two.  Explains the wifi outage.  He hooked up the new modem (that looks exactly like the one downstairs that has been working so well, by the way).  He even took the time to change the modem name and install our password.  And he gave me his phone number in case we had problems.  That way we can bypass the computer moat they have set up to screen calls.  I would say that we were all set in the wifi department for Bethlehem Market.

Once Taylor left the work began.  Chris adjusted and hung Christmas lights.  I was assigned signs to make for the market.  By the time Lauren arrived to get the potatoes cooking we were all set for Christmas in the worship room. 

OK wait.  I mentioned potatoes, so I guess I should explain.  Last night Seaside hosted a Christmas Stenciling Workshop.  One of our local ladies brought in her supplies and led us in making all sorts of Christmas signs.  Mine said JOY.  So did Cailyn’s.  We picked the easy one.  Chris wasn’t so lucky.  She did one that was a verse from Luke in the shape of a Christmas tree with a star on top.  It was one of the most difficult of the bunch.  But of course, she did awesome.  I was just glad to have the quite capable assistance of a high school young lady from St. Louis.  She was one of the most encouraging people I have ever met.  Lots of people there doing all sorts of stencils other than the three we had to choose from.  Most of them were returning customers working on specific special order stencils. 

Oh, but the potatoes.  Lauren, in her Events Planner wisdom, knew that for this event to really be complete, we needed that one extra draw … food.  So she brought in a bunch of potatoes and others brought the fixin’s to have a baked potato bar to kick off the evening.  It was a great icebreaker and a great overall start to a really fun night. 

Psalms 9:10 says, “Those who know your name will trust in you, for you, Lord, have never forsaken those who seek you.”


Father, thank you for Judy and her niece and daughter.  Their help was … really helpful.  Bless them.  Amen.

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