MIDWEEK MESSAGE #83
Hello and welcome to Midweek Message #83. I hope your week is going well and you are enjoying these beautiful fall days. This will be one of those “random” messages. Lots to say but no special order in any of it.
Some very special upcoming events which need your attention:
- This coming Sunday is the last day to bring in your Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes. Monday the three of us (Pastor Ryan, Diana and I) will be taking the boxes to Sherwood Oaks church in Bloomington. As of Monday morning, there were two boxes left to be filled. If you would like to take one or both of the remaining boxes, please call Diana at the church office and she will make arrangements for you to pick them up. I am so excited OVCF responded as we have. We will have a total number of shoeboxes for you next week!
- Thanksgiving Day is quickly approaching where we will be serving our community a meal from 11-1:00. They have three opportunities to receive a meal. We can deliver it. We can make it available for curbside pick-up. They can come to the Lions Club and eat inside. We can really use your help though. We still have some turkeys and hams unspoken for to bake, as well as some empty spots for providing food. Sign-up sheets are on the back table for you to indicate what you would like to bring, OR you can call the church office (812.828.9840) and tell Diana what you would like to prepare. She has the list to inform you where we need help. We need several people who will help assemble the delivery and curbside meals. Also, I need some who will help with deliveries.
- The Giving Tree is something we had to set aside last year due to the pandemic. Diana has a heart for the children in our community to have a Christmas they will remember. She gathers names of children (via their families or folks who know them) who need help in providing for Christmas. You can do two things to help make it successful. One, you can provide names of children who need help with Christmas gifts this year. Two, you can take one or several of the tags provided and purchase the needed gifts. Every year we have done this I have been amazed how much of a heart you all have for the children/families of this community. From giving names to buying gifts, your heart shows through. I anticipate this year will be no different. Look for The Giving Tree on November 28. Please start giving Diana names now if you know of a family who needs help. She needs all the info by Sunday, November 21.
- Whether we provide Christmas breakfast is still up in the air. The deadline to let me know if you want to coordinate that is Sunday, November 28th.
Life is a highway…or is that a puzzle? I guess that depends on who you talk to. This is more of a personal note to you. Winter comes and it is sometimes hard to get outside. Then again, it might not be hard to get outside; it might be more of “who wants to go outside?” So we find things to do inside. For close to 20 years one of my winter hobbies has been doing 1000 piece jigsaw puzzles. Whether the snow is flying or it is just downright too cold to go out, I find my relaxation is doing puzzles. One of my favorite puzzles to assemble are train puzzles. I’ve done several Titanic puzzles over the years. I have several Back to the Future puzzles. But, and it is a seriously important “but,” there is only so much wall space. Jo is not as fond of my puzzles as I am so she has said, “No” to new interior decorating of our walls with jigsaw puzzles. Can you honestly believe she would do that to me? Wouldn’t you just love to walk into a house where all the walls are covered with train puzzles? No? You’re no help. J Anyway, I have over 20 1000 piece train puzzles sitting in boxes. I assembled them, then after she looked at it and grunted, “Looks nice,” I took them apart and put them in Ziploc bags in the original boxes. I am looking for a good home for them. They are trains of all kinds with all different scenes. If you would like to work a jigsaw puzzle as a family or individual, I would love to give them to you. You can take as many as you want as long as you will work them. And here is the kicker: I don’t want them back. You can glue them or put them back in the Ziploc bags and save them for another day or pass them along to someone else. And by the way, I do have some already glued that I’m willing to give to you to decorate your walls. J Just let me know and I can show you what I have by texting pictures to you.
With Thanksgiving right around the corner (do I hear some cheering from the student and teaching section as you read that?), I hope you have remembered to take some time to write down what you are thankful for. I can choose to be grateful or to grumble. I can choose to praise or pout. I can choose to count my blessings or complain about what I don’t like. Do you remember the scene in Forrest Gump when he is sitting at a bus stop and offers a lady a chocolate? He says, “Momma always said, ‘Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get.’” Forrest’s momma was right. I love chocolate, but I don’t like nuts in my chocolate. I try to avoid them whenever I can. We are hit from life on all sides. Some things we simply can’t avoid. But I have noticed how much better life is when my attitude is one of gratitude for the simple things God has blessed me with. Family. Friends. Job. A ride on a bike. A night with friends. A good book (or a puzzle). Relaxing with Jo. Eating pizza or ice cream, especially that! J Simple things which to some people mean nothing, but to me screams, “Blessings!” I am grateful for you, my friends. November is an anniversary for me, Jo and Diana. Jo and I moved here in November of 2005. Diana and I started the same time (she actually shadowed MJ a week earlier). So we start Year #17 this month. I am thankful for the prodding wife and the long phone calls with Caleb Petree which started this train rolling. (For those of you not familiar with that story, I will tell it next week in MM#84). I can hear the excitement in your breathing already!! Anyway, back to reality. Don’t wait until Thanksgiving Day to express your thanks to God. Start today. In the meantime, know that I love you all. Have a great rest of the week.
Pastor Bill
P.S. Big congratulations to Caleb Hutchison on achieving his lifelong goal of becoming a conservation officer!!
