Curling update

OK. There are probably one or two folks out there who are curious to know about my curling experience. I had fun, but I am a little sore. I learned very quickly that there is a lot of difficulty in doing this right. I had a very patient teacher who taught me to balance and move around on the ice first. In all the times I have watched curling, the people make it look so effortless as they move up and down the ice. Let me tell you, it ain't that easy. I didn't fall while sliding standing up, but I did fall a couple of times trying to learn how to deliver a shot. I also got to shoot a few rocks. The first one that the guy let travel down the ice ended up almost directly on the button!(which is a good thing) As I was leaving, I found out that I used some muscles that aren't used to that kind of work. Overall, it was a lot of fun, and I have decided to go back some more and get some practice. Hopefully, I can get good enough to join in next fall. Next week, I will take a couple of pictures of the club if I get a chance.

The work of evangelism

As most of you know, I am almost done with my bachelor's degree.  One of the final classes I am taking is a course on evangelism.  Evangelism is one of those things that we all know we need to do, but many of us put off doing.  I for one have used more excuses than I can remember for why I couldn't talk to someone about Christ.  Well, I am getting sick of my excuses.  Sharing the gospel isn't an optional thing for any of us.  Most of us probably are afraid to share with others.  Maybe we are afraid of saying the wrong thing.  Of course, if you are a believer in Jesus Christ, all you need to do is share how he changed your life.  There is no way you can get that wrong.  I saw a video as a part of my class, where Ray Comfort asked believers if they could overcome their fear of witnessing if they were given $1000 dollars for every person they witnessed to.  What a convicting question.  I have made a couple of adjustments in my life based on what I saw.  First, I decided that I needed to go and put my money where my heart is.  A couple of years ago, I heard about an organization called Gospel for Asia.  They are involved in using native missionaries to share with their people the Gospel of Christ.  For $30/month, you can be involved in sponsoring a pastor who is spreading the Gospel in Asia.  I know that it isn't as heartwarming perhaps as sponsoring a hungry child, but imagine the impact of this kind of sponsorship on the Kingdom of God.  I encourage you to check them out.  But even more than that, I encourage you to share your own story whenever you can.  

Curling

It is funny really.  One of the things that excited me about the fact that God had called us here was the chance to get a first-hand experience with the sport of curling.  I confess to being one of those folks that find this sport endlessly fascinating.  When it was shown during the Olympics a few years back, I think I watched almost every match.  This week I am planning on going down to the curling club for the first time.  Yesterday and today I watched curling on the CBC channel out of Winnipeg to get a better feel for strategy and things.  I admit that some will think it is a little weird, but I find it very appealing.  I will be sure to post my initial thoughts after getting a look on Tuesday night.  

More Pictures

I have been meaning to get some more pictures posted from last week. Things are going well here. We got an unexpected snow shower last night that didn't amount to much. The night before we had a great view of the eclipse. We let the kids stay up to watch it until it was full and then got them to bed. We have been having some problems with allergies and Jeremiah's asthma has been flaring up some as well. Otherwise, we are all good. We are getting excited about traveling to the Black Hills area next week for a friend's wedding. I can't wait to see everyone there again. It has been almost six months since we left there to move up here.
We are seeing a lot of good things happen here as well. We have a conference scheduled with Mike Taylor in April for one-to-one discipleship training and a couple of Bible conferences as well. I am looking forward to that as well.

This is us at the Valentine's Banquet last week.

This is me playing on the PS2 upstairs while
the kids watch and pose for the camera.

Winter Weather

We have another winter weather advisory today.  This is the weather service's way of hedging their bets.  The bummer is that it has warmed up so much today that it may come down as freezing rain instead of snow.  As I sit here typing it is 32 degrees, which is a huge change from the past few days.  For my part, I would like to see more snow still.  But I am in the minority around here for sure.  

Valentine's Day News

We had a pretty busy day today. Amelia took the kids to the nursing home here in town to give Valentine's Day cards to the residents. The kids had fun and were very cute of course. Before they could leave though, I had a chance to put the snow blower through its paces clearing the driveway. I even found a way to get it on the porch to do some clearing there as well. I am going to post a couple of pictures at the end of this post. Also, tonight I was the speaker/singer at a Valentine's banquet hosted by one of the other churches here in town. It was a lot of fun and Amelia and I got to have a nice dinner while someone else watched the kids for a couple of hours.


Blowing the snow in the driveway

The drift that is next to the driveway

This is the drift alongside the walk to our front porch

This is what the walk looked like before I cleared it with the blower

This is the porch from our front door after I cleared some of it with the blower

Super Super Bowl

Well, we had a lot of fun with the Super Bowl party last night.  The game was a good one and the fellowship was a lot of fun.  The ladies hung out in the office area and changed the channel on the second TV.  When we got to halftime, I had planned to show a video to everyone and had to wait a couple of minutes so they could see the end of a show on the Food Network.  They also played Scrabble during the second half and Amelia won the game.  She was very excited.  The kids had a blast and I ate way too much junk food.  But it was a great evening.  The snow has been falling all day today and we have another 4 inches or so on the ground.  And sometime this week we are going to be cutting into our kitchen ceiling to check out the pipes to our master bathroom.  It should be an interesting week for sure.

Super Bowl Sunday

It must be the old youth pastor in me.  We have invited any and all of our church folks to come to the house tonight and enjoy food, fellowship and some football.  Truthfully, I would like to see the Giants win tonight, but it really doesn't matter all that much to me either way.  I am more excited at the opportunity to open our hearts and home to our family here.  We have a couple of TVs set up and more snack food than you can shake a stick at so we are ready to go.