Dear First Pres,

How are you this Thursday? Two weeks till Thanksgiving and like you, I am gearing up both here at work and making plans with family. There's lots of activity this season for a Mission & Outreach Director such as: Inviting you to join our partners in the Lowell Community Thanksgiving Meal; Ordering Christmas Eve Invitations for you to use; Finalizing the Alternative Christmas Gift Shopping List; Collecting Card Art Contest submissions (really fun) some of which will become the cards for those Alternative Gifts; Helping a couple of our college students prepare to go to InterVarsity's Urbana Mission Conference between Christmas & New Year.

In the midst of a slightly hectic time, I'm finding great joy in some of the sweet moments of this week - moments for which I'm thankful. Here's a few just from last night's WednesdayNights@FPC gathering:

  • Enjoying great soup, another meal prepared and served by a faithful crew who show up every week.
  • Returning all the items left behind at my house by various Community Group members with one sweep around the room because they were there! 
  • Having so many kids be eager to help put away chairs and tables after dinner to reset the Fellowship Hall for games later. Okay, there were adults helping, too, but none of them said, like 7 year old Keira Swaim, "What ELSE can I do to help?" Music to my ears.
  • Having a husband willing to spend a good deal of his holiday search around town for 4 truck inner tubes so that I could use them for a game with the kids that night. He delivered them blown up and ready to use with a little help from Oscar. 
  • Watching the kids enjoy said inner tube relay game - one we played in Erseke this summer. Two to a tube they ran up and down the Fellowship Hall. They had to figure out how to work together, harder for some than others. Josh Blodgett and Anna Rooney were the most improved from their first attempt to their third - and they were so delighted about it. Sorry there isn't a picture, because their joy-filled faces were priceless. 

What moments this week are you thankful for? It doesn't need to be a long list to be a great list, one that can help guard our hearts and minds in Jesus. 

Grateful,

Terry