Wednesday Worship

WOW! We had an awesome service last night. It was all geared around communion. We even had Mike Hope, CMA missionary to Russia with us to share from what is happening with their ministry. God showed up in a big way!

If you are an attender of Hawley Alliance and have not yet checked out the Wednesday service, uff-da, you are missing out! We have a great fellowship together. We spend about 20 minutes singing, 20 minutes sharing and praying, then 20 minutes in Philippians. It has been amazing.

Maybe you are in a different part of the world than Hawley, MN. I'd encourage you to think about attending church more than just on Sunday mornings. Our Wednesday night services have been just the booster shot that a lot of us have been craving between Sunday's!

Mom

Today would be my mother's 58th birthday. She passed away last December. There are times that I miss her very much. Today is one of those days. It has not been a very good couple of weeks. I do not believe what I am battling is depression. I think that God is working in my life and the evil one is well aware of it and throwing troubles my way.

It is hard to lose someone so close. Not sure who you have lost at this point in your life, but I know now from personal experience the pain in losing your mother. It is funny how i feel a kindred spirit to others who have gone through the same. As a pastor, i can look them in the eye and simply say, "I know."

Happy birthday, Mom!

Mexico

Zach and Josh are now in Reynosa, Mexico on a short term missions trip. It is the first big trip that they have taken without Ciny or I being with them. To be honest it is more than a little weird. It is very hard to see your kids grow up.

I am thankful that both boys wanted to make this trip. It will be life-changing for them. I have been on several trips myself and I know how the sights, smells, and experiences work on your heart. We are praying that God will capture their hearts for Him while they are away.

By biggest fear is the inevitable fall from the mountain top after the trip. We are looking at trying to keep their interests in God at a high level once they get home. As the boys have gotten older we have gotten away from doing family devotions. We all run in different directions. Cindy and I are trying to put together a plan to get those going again.

Join us in prayer that God would take control of Zach and Josh's lives while they serve Him in Mexico this week.

Vacation!

I'm sorry it has been so long since my last post. My family is just getting back in the saddle from a little vacation to Maple Trails Resort near Walker, MN. I won an ebay auction for a weeks stay on the Boy River. We all like to fish so we decided to make a week of it (almost)!

We took off on Sunday following our worship service. We had a friend keep our yellow lab, Dodger while we were away. It took about three hours to get to the resort. We were not exactly tickled pink with the accomodations. The bathrooms were icky, but they did flush. The windows did not all open, and they were far from mosquito proof. The rooms were very small and dark. Not exactly the Hilton, if you know what I mean.

We were able to do a lot of fishing. We caught a lot of small perch and northerns. I did catch a 16 inch walleye, but the fishing was nothing to brag about either. Also, there was no good place to store our bait as their doick area was extremely small, and there was lots of gas and oil in the water from the boats. The shiners died very easily.

We had planned to come home on Wednesday for church, and then to head back out on Thursday. We all decided we had enough comeWednesday morning. We just packed up, squared away our bill, and hit the road! Seeing that I got the trip as a deal on ebay, we felt we did not lose too much in the deal.

We did all take the rest of the week off, so it was a pretty good week of rest!