July 7; summer is fully here.

This morning our daughter Elise & I traveled to Charlotte to wish my mom a happy birthday – – in person! It was Elise’s first chance to hug her grandma in close to three years. It’s the first time since Elise, Ben & our granddaughters moved in with us in January that all the adults are fully vaccinated and the timing was right to step out of our bubble. We are still extremely mindful that our granddaughters are not yet eligible to be vaccinated and that various variants may be carried from a vaccinated person to an unvaccinated person. (https://johnpavlovitz.com/2021/07/06/our-family-got-vaccinated-then-we-all-got-covid/)

I’m thankful that Clemson still offers drive up testing so that I could confirm I was negative following several weeks of engaging with many people from several states.

So even as I am very excited to continue to see and welcome people on Sunday mornings, as excited as I am that the numbers in our area are mostly positive (the good positive, not the bad positive) I still harbor a concern that I have had since seeing the tragedy that India went through (with significantly fewer vaccinated people) and the challenges now facing Israel and Great Britain (two highly vaccinated countries): the Delta variant and its successors. The one number not in our favor in the upstate is the percentage of people vaccinated. If/when one of the variants takes hold we are ripe for another hard time.

So, our household continues to be diligent, hopeful, and attentive to what’s going on. When we’ve traveled we’ve tried to be as safe as possible. If we have any questions about the possibility of exposure, we take full advantage of the free testing at Nettles Park – the results from the saliva test are usually back within 12 hours.

I hope you are having a safe and enjoyable summer thus far and I do look forward to worshiping with you either online or in person this Sunday.

God’s peace & hope,

Pastor Jon