Comments on: Location, Location, Location

By: jill

jill — Sun, 27 Nov 2005 15:30:00 +0000

Re: Location, Location, Location

Perhaps… It’s gonna be great after all. Abilene is a SMALL place and the commute from anywhere to anywhere is pretty laughable… Not near ACU… yeah there are ALOT of christians at ACU, but then you would be preaching to the choir? Not a bad thing, but is that really “growing” or just rearranging? Hmmm… Have you considered an Alpha course?

By: Agent B

Agent B — Sun, 27 Nov 2005 00:56:00 +0000

Thanks for the dinner gigs that you guys do for your neighborhood. I didn’t know you guys did that.

I love that neighborhood. I lived in it for 5 years (around Russel & Santos).

Keep serving them. Thanks

By: Byron

Byron — Fri, 25 Nov 2005 03:38:00 +0000

California every other year for Christman. We had to buy a third ticket this year. The trip is now officially expensive. My inlaws are here in town, but gas is also expensive.

By: Heather A

Heather A — Thu, 24 Nov 2005 05:53:00 +0000

My brother spoke at the youth-led Oasis devo tonight in his yearly “gig”. He did a great job, of course. It was funny, though, because during the singing before he spoke, I looked over and there he was sitting in “your” chair, looking just like I have seen you look many times in worship before. Then I come read your blog, and you post the same verse that he spoke from tonight. It’s just too funny.
P.S. My family has done the alternating thing ever since I can remember. We do Thanksgiving with Mom’s side and Christmas with Dad’s, and the next year we switch. Only we’re now on the third year in a row to have Thankgiving with Mom’s side since we had to flip last year due to my grandmother’s death right around Thanksgiving. Pray for my family tomorrow. It will probably be a hard day to not have my grandmother at the Thanksgiving table this year.

Send my love to Diane and Chris!

By: Amy Grant

Amy Grant — Thu, 24 Nov 2005 02:55:00 +0000

Dee, thanks for your comment and the reminder to continue praying for rebuilding after Katrina. I guess the Holidays will be different in many ways for you this year.

We are having an unusual week having come off a long trip today rather than just starting one! We had an added bonus of a pre-Thanksgiving visit to Oklahoma for a wedding.

Today we arrived in Mississippi to celebrate with my family before heading back home to Tennessee on Saturday.

At the moment I am just so thankful to be out of that van with my three children!!

By: Dee O'Neil Andrews

Dee O'Neil Andrews — Thu, 24 Nov 2005 01:00:00 +0000

Mike -

I know I’m really late in adding my comment here for today, but that’s because I’ve been gone all day working on church related (Tammany Oaks in Mandeville) and hurricane related things that needed to be done.

I just want to ask all of you who happen to read this comment to pray for us. For me and my husband, Tom, here in “Katrina Zone,” and for all of the other thousands and thousands here, too, because things here, for a lot of us, are just getting worse and worse with the ever widening ripples of loss and hardship that no one outside of this area can even begin to imagine.

I had planned for today - a glorious cool fall day here - to be spent preparing my beloved husband a Thanksgiving meal for the two of us for tomorrow, but, instead, have had to be out all day taking care of church things and hurricane related things.

My husband, who is no exception to the rule around here, left home YESTERDAY morning at 5:30 a.m. and hasn’t been home since. Worse - due to yet ANOTHER (of many) employee leaving his employ at the newspaper in Picayune, Mississippi, just up the road, late this afternoon, he will not be able to come home until maybe 1 a.m. TOMORROW - Thanksgiving Day - having had NO - NONE - sleep since 5:30 a.m. Tuesday morning.

Please, please, remember ALL of those thousands and thousands of people down here in “Katrina Zone” whose lives have been turned upside down to the extent that nothing, and I do mean nothing, is any more normal, nor will it be for a long, long time.

We need your prayers to hold on, to keep going, to keep trying to shine as God’s beacons to those in even more distress than we, and to know that in the end, God will keep us all safe in His care until that day of His return for us all on this earth.

That is my thanksgiving prayer for tonight and I ask all of you who will to pray it with me.

By: Randy

Randy — Wed, 23 Nov 2005 22:02:00 +0000

Mike, can you send me some contact info for Matt and Sarah? We worked for five years in Eugene, Oregon and know of a group of believers meeting there trying to be in the middle of God’s work. Our friends in Eugene would love to be acquainted with others working towards the same goal.

randy_wray@acocfamily.org

By: Rick Scheibner

Rick Scheibner — Wed, 23 Nov 2005 21:54:00 +0000

Eugene, Oregon is one of the most unchurched cities in one of the most unchurched states in the Union. I’m glad somebody’s doing well with a church there.

Here’s a Thanksgiving Poem if anybody’s interested:

http://www.pendleton-naz.org/blog/2005/11/thanksgiving-poem.html

By: Deana Nall

Deana Nall — Wed, 23 Nov 2005 19:08:00 +0000

Here’s what you do: Marry a guy whose parents live in Alaska. Decide to live in Texas. The holiday thing will never be an issue because they live so far away. You can almost pretend they don’t exist. This worked well for us for a number of years. Until they divorced and one of them moved in with us. But that’s another blog for another day.

By: annie

annie — Wed, 23 Nov 2005 17:55:00 +0000

Thanksgiving Day is my favorite holiday of all. Christmas without the stress of present-buying. Both of our sons will be absent from the family table. College son has gone to visit married son out in LA. We won’t be with married son & darling d-i-l at Christmas either. Can’t think about it too much or I’ll get a little blue. However, am so thankful to God that he has blessed me with sons who love Him, are healthy, are capable, & who call their mom on Holidays & regular days!

By: Coping

Coping — Wed, 23 Nov 2005 17:53:00 +0000

Oh yeah. I know about alternating. Hurrah for a quietThanksgiving that will soon be over - and for Christmas soon to come. It’s our year, you know. God be with you.

By: jlane

jlane — Wed, 23 Nov 2005 17:53:00 +0000

This is the first Thanksgiving ever without my 17 year old daughter. She is in Uganda with the Ankole Mission Team. We will miss her so much. I don’t know how parents of missionaries do it year after year. That is true sacrifice. One good thing about it–she has now narrowed her choices of vocation–it will not be teaching second grade!!

By: Melanie Morales

Melanie Morales — Wed, 23 Nov 2005 17:30:00 +0000

We are in a trial-and-error period right now. With the addition of our son this year, this kind of changes holidays for us. Used to, we would just take these as they come each year and see what would work out best for everyone’s schedules.

On Thanksgiving, my husband is a supervisor with Homeland Security so he works on Thanksgiving - it doesn’t fall on is day off. He could take off because he has seniority; but holidays are great extra income for us because he gets paid for the holiday; and then he gets paid for working the holiday plus holiday pay for working the holiday! So, this is the second year that I am cooking and his mother and sisters are coming here. My brother we never know about unless he shows up. So, this year, we invited my parents over to join us - and then we’ll have plenty of food if my brother decides to join us. My family lives here and my husband’s family only lives a couple of hours away. So even with Kevin’s parents being divorced; they are both in the same city, so at Christmas Day and the following day we will go there and divide our time between families.

What I am really excited about this year is that when I grew up my grandmother’s family had big reunions during the holiday season. Once her and her brothers and sisters had all passed on, the reunions faded away. My dad and his cousins decided to revive the reunions this year- and they will be the Saturday after Thanksgiving. I am looking forward to that and hopefully, many more!

I wish you and everyone a Happy Thanksgiving!

By: RebelinMemphis

RebelinMemphis — Wed, 23 Nov 2005 15:35:00 +0000

I admire the Highland Church in Abilene for staying put and ministering to the neighborhood. Please pray that the Highland Street Church in Memphis will do the same. Moving to a new neighborhood or bigger building isn’t always the best idea. The church is needed at its current location. Funny thing, the ministers and elders have told us several times that God has opened a door for us to buy this or that property but something comes up and the door closes. Maybe it’s God closing the door and telling us to stay put!

By: Kelley

Kelley — Wed, 23 Nov 2005 15:25:00 +0000

Deserpate times call for measures. 3 years ago we deteremined that all the running from here to there was too much for those of us on my mother’s side of the family. So we determined that we would stop getting together on Thanksgiving day and also having an additional Christmas gathering. People weren’t able to come and it was getting depressing for folks to be missing out. So we have claimed the Saturday after Thanksgiving for this side of the family. We celebrate BIG. We have Thanksgiving and Christmas all in one HUGE day. It’s so awesome. Everyone is able to come and we have so much fun. Everyone comes and stays all day! We start with appetizers at 11am and the last guests leave about 9pm. No one is in a rush to go somewhere else. We’ve opened up our house as the new traditional place for this event for 40+ cousins, inlaws, grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc. One of my favorite things to do is sneak off at some point during the day and set at the top of my staircase. No one sees me there, but I can close my eyes and focus on all the joy I can hear in my house. Laughter, chatter and love abounds. We still have the get togethers with all the other family on the traditional days, but this idea of the Saturday after Thanksgiving has worked out beautifully for us and has cut down on the running around a smig.