Today has been bitterly cold. As I write this on January 19th, tonight’s temperature is projected to hit 19 below zero with a high tomorrow of minus 8 degrees. The cold cut down attendance at Parkview United Methodist Church in Turtle Lake, a town about half an hour east of my home. I served for 4 1/2 months as Parkview’s Interim Pastor. They have always been most gracious and welcoming to me and know the people well enough to be able to call them out by name during sharing times in the worship service, as well as before and after the service. So the crowd this morning was not a crowd but we had a worthwhile experience together and ended with a rousing hail to “This Is The Day The Lord Has Made!”
Next Sunday I’m at Wolf Creek United Methodist Church. Service time is 8:15 a.m. and for years now Marina has been amazed that I am able to function effectively at that hour. Maybe somewhere in my distant ancestry there were farmers?
One of the women at Parkview ordered Marina’s book from Amazon and said she loved it! When she finished, she donated the book to the church library for others to enjoy. Marina’s book, Gretel and Andy, God’s Gift; The Lives of Two Seeing Eye Dogs. also can be found at Bowman Collective in downtown Amery, Wisconsin. The Collective has all four of my paperbacks, as does Kenneth Larson in Luck. Pure and Simple, the home of great wild rice soup, has my Some Mangled Fairy Tales, as does St.Croix Health’s pharmacy/gift shops. Polk County’s Information Center also has all four of my books.
Daughter Hannah called just before the cold hit to see if we might need anything to prepare for it. Daughter Britta and her husband Mark took the trouble to trek to our place for some visiting and to bring us a “care package” of home-made lasagna and some cookies and our Portugal based son, Aaron, phoned his usual weekly check-in this afternoon. Marina and I feel cared about, blessed and are grateful.