Christmas Fun at New Paris, IN

Here are some random photos of us at Josh's mom's house this week.

Josh, Jamie, Dan, Zeeke, Jessi, Andrew, Olivia, and Nate.

A little DDR fun. I'm not that good at it, but people laugh when I try, so that's good.


Jessi, my brother Dan's wife, and Jamie.
Somehow the kids never seem to look at the camera.


You may wonder what in the world is going on. And I would too if I wasn't in the picture. We're attempting to swat a ball out of a tree. It took us only two tries to get it. How many Hilty's does it take....?


Olivia. That baby doll is the new tickle-me doll...you pick it up, and it tickles you.
Okay, just kidding.


Zeeke. He reminds me of what I think God was trying to do 2,000 years ago. Send us a present in His Son, Jesus. Have we taken the bow off the top and said, "Thanks God"?

Maddie...Our New Cat

Meet Maddie, one of our Christmas presents this year. My mom and Carl got her for Jamie, and I get to share her.

Our new kitten, Maddie. She's a little white furball full of energy. Mom and Carl gave us her and some money to get her de-clawed and neutered. The next one is of her and Nick, my mom's dog. I think he will be sad to see her go.
And Jamie will be happy to get her home. Who knows how we'll do that though. Seven hours in a car. We'll see :).

Pray

Please pray for a man in our church who just lost his mother yesterday morning. She had been in and out of the hospital the last few months, but death is never easy to deal with. Pray for Jamie and I as we will be here trying to comfort him and his family. The funeral is Tuesday the 26th. Pray for me as this is my first funeral.

Thank you.

68

Sixty-eight. Random number any other day...but yesterday that was our morning worship attendance. Double what we average. As a pastor, I'll admit that although I'm not supposed to worry about numbers, I do. To see 68 people there was great. Our kids put on their Christmas musical during service, so I didn't preach. They did an amazing job! We weren't sure how it would work out, especially since a few in particular were overly sugar-loaded. They all remembered lines and songs.

Also on Saturday our nursery area was painted a bright blue and white. It looks 100 percent better.

Yesterday after service a couple from our church and their 10-year-old daughter took us out to see Charlotte's Web. It was a good movie! Within five minutes, Jamie said, "We have to buy this!" She was impressed with how good they made Charlotte look. It's hard to make a spider look beautiful, you know. After the movie we went to Uno's Chicago Grill. Awesome restaurant! Equivalent to an Outback or Texas Roadhouse.

Now we're looking forward to the last week before seeing family. The schedule looks like this:

24th PM Warsaw Wesleyan Christmas Eve Service
25th Christmas at Janofski's
26th Christmas with Hilty's/time with Josh's dad
27th Time at Hilty's
28th Janofski's
29th Going home

We'd like to make a Marion stop in there sometime. So if anyone has an open day and wants to get together, respond to this post and we'll try to rearrange the schedule. We may try and stay thru Friday and leave Saturday, it all depends.

Merry Christmas!

Hospitals

I've been in hospitals this week much more than I ever imagined possible for a person who hadn't been admitted to one. In fact, its mainly just been the last two days. Friday one of my members had surgery in Madison to remove two aneurisms. God was good, and he is recovering. It sounds like the doctors were able to take care of both aneurisms in one shot. Jamie and I left Baraboo at 5:00 AM to get there and stayed until 1:00 PM. Not too long. Except I was dead tired and felt like I was worthless to the family.

Then Friday night I got a phone call telling me to come to Baraboo's St. Clare Hospital. One of my members was back in the ICU. This was her second trip there in a week, and her fourth in two months. She's 88 and has a failing heart and lung damage. She's been fighting this for so long and it's been hard to see her in pain all the time. Her family has been at her side through all of it. They keep saying they hate to see their mom suffer like this.

Friday night was especially hard because the doctors informed us that they will not perform CPR or do anything to resuscitate her if she slips again. They feel that it will not improve her quality of life, and will actually only prolong her suffering. So her sons and daughter grudgingly agreed to sign a "do not resuscitate" paper.

I wish I had more experience, more wisdom to offer. Yes, "just being there" is what matters. But at times like Friday night, I again felt worthless to the family. My greatest fear is about the time she passes away. It could happen on Christmas. It could happen on Christmas Eve. No matter what, it seems like this could be a situation which prevents us from seeing family this Christmas. I don't want to be selfish. And yet I am.

My prayer is that whatever happens we will get to travel home and stay at home without a funeral in the middle.

I would ask that whoever reads this in the coming days pray for God's will to be done in this situation...not mine. Pray for me as I go through my first funeral. Pray for the family as they will soon be grieving the loss of their mother. Thank you.

Christmastime in Baraboo

Christmas is coming, and the temperatures show it. We've been down in the single digits the last few days (still no snow, though). Church has been going well. Last Sunday we had 39 people, with 19 of them being age 30 or younger! Jamie and two others are planning a Christmas kid's musical for the 17th. Right now 14 kids are participating! Jamie is going to have them to our house next Friday for a movie night.

On Wednesday the 13th we're having the first annual Hilty Christmas Open House. Jamie has been hard at work baking and decorating. The menu for the night includes two cheesecakes, angel food cake, fudge, oatmeal, chocolate chip, mint, peanut butter, and pumpkin cookies, snickerdoodles, ham roll-ups, veggies, chips, and reindeer made of pretzels. I know I forgot some, but this is most of it. She's got all the cookies prepared and frozen...just needs to bake them (my wife is such a great cook!). We sent out invitations to our congregation and some other friends, so hopefully we'll have around 40-50 people come.

We plan to go Christmas caroling on the 20th and have a candlelight/communion service on the 22nd. So, add one man's surgery, another woman in the hospital now, 3 more sermons to prepare, dinner with the whole church on the 16th, and all that's missing is the partridge in a pear tree.

We will get to see family this year, and Tiffany is coming up with us when we return so Gale and Janet can go to The Gathering.

I know I'm excited for all that December has. I think that God allows special things to happen at a greater frequency around this time. I don't know why, but for some reason God's presence and power is more visible to me in December than at any other time of year. Maybe it's because I'm expecting it. Maybe I don't take enough time to "look for" God January through November. It's not like God is silent or taking a break at other times, so it must be me.

My prayer for this December is that I would expect God to be God in 2007. Every day. Advent literally means "arrival." What better way to celebrate than to expect God to work now that He's here?

So, I Guess We are Weird

So, apparently we've been tagged by Amy to list 6 weird things about each of us . . . but there's two of us here, and we might just have to confess 12. I might have to confess our oddities for both of us. (We'll see what Josh has to mutter when he reads this!)

1. I sing in my sleep . . . the alto harmony of the Indiana Wesleyan University Chorale songs. At least that's what my college roommate reported to me, especially after returning from strenuous Praise Gathering weekends in Indianapolis. When I'm not belting out the alto lines of "Now Shout" & "Betelehumu" I like to create my own Russian Peasant Woman melodies with various sleepy oohs and aahhs.

2. My knees have always been and will always be "dirty" from childhood scars. One dark spot on each knee causes onlookers to question if I've been playing in the dirt recently.

3. Nine times out of 10, if I see you in Wal-Mart and you haven't seen me yet, I'll hide. Not because I don't like you, but because I'm just plain scared to say Hi and start a conversation.

4. I hate talking on the phone, unless it is work-related or I'm talking with my immediate family.

5. I love to cook and bake, and in general, be completely creative with construction paper or any other childhood art supply . . . but don't count on me cleaning up my mess for at least 6 days. (I am trying to grow up and fix this messy fetish.)

6. I, too, am a packrat and save everything from old school work and class notes, to empty pasta boxes with lasagna recipes, to birthday cards from way back when I was 2.

Odd Things About Josh:
1. He sees a pediddle car on the road, knows what the heck a pediddle car is, but refuses to pound his hand on the roof of the car and yell out, "Pediddle!"

2. He likes to start long projects, but very rarely finishes them.

3. (Exception to #2) He's organized the 1300 fonts on our computer, and created a binder full of 1300 "samples" for us to search through when choosing good ones to use.

4. He dislikes when the clocks in our house are on different times; they must all be on the same time (digital satellite time).

5. He loses his sanctification when driving on the 90/94 tollway through Chicago . . . or when driving the Marion, Indiana bypass. (We've since figured out new and holier ways to travel home, avoiding Chicago traffic at all costs.)

6. He gets frustrated with most Christian television (at least the ones on our cable network).

So, now, Stephen and Michelle, it's your turn.