Hilty January Update

So it's been a little while since we've posted. Oops. Here's an update on the month of January for us.

The kitten. Maddie (we call her Madeline more often because it's her I'm-in-deep-trouble name), is getting bigger. She enjoys playing with her yarn, cardboard boxes, our feet, getting onto the table and countertop in the bathroom, and drinking the leftover water in the tub after a shower. Don't ask me why she does the last one...I don't know. But everytime we take a shower, she jumps in immediately after the water is off and lays down, gets wet and laps up the puddles. Goober. We love her and wouldn't know what to do without her. Right after Christmas our neighbors brought us another kitten, because they knew we wanted one. But they didn't ask if we still wanted one with Maddie in the house. So we took it. For one day. It was sick, with junk running out of its eyes, and it wouldn't eat. We took it to the humane society because right now we can't afford to keep two cats.

Women's ministry. I may not be best qualified to write this, but here goes. The women have been meeting bi-monthly for Bible study and monthly for fun nights. In January they made take-home shower sundaes. They put bath poofs and salts and foot massage stuff into a sundae glass. They also had Mary Kay facials. They've been averaging about 5-8 women per time. I'll let Jamie fill you in more about this and about writing later.

Men's ministry. The men of our church have been going out for breakfasts bi-monthly for prayer, a short devotional, and fellowship. Some of the guys who are normally shy have started opening up. And the food's good too!

Snow/weather. It hasn't been much worse than an Indiana winter. Today we had temps around zero and below. I guess they're calling for 30 below in a few days. They wait to close schools here until it gets 50 below. I wonder if IWU would close for that....probably not. We had two good size snowfalls earlier with a total of 8 inches or so. There's still a few inches on the ground now. We still haven't tried skiing. Maybe someday.

Ministers and Mates Retreat. What a wonderful time! We were so excited to meet lots of the other pastors and wives. I don't think we could ask for a better district all around. Dr. Jerry Pence was our speaker. We felt like he was speaking directly for us and our church. It was neat to meet the pastor who fixed up our parsonage, and one of the former ministers of our church (Alan Tripp, who was here in the 70s. The parsonage was built under his leadership and almost split the church). It was extremely encouraging to hear we were being prayed for over and over.

Right now we're getting ready for Lent, a Valentine's Day party, and Jamie hopes to head down to Indiana to help take care of her dad after his surgery (Feb. 12). He's having his other hip and knee replaced. If you think about it, pray that it would work out logistically for her to go down (me without a car). She also hopes to make it to the World Impact Commissioning Service.

We'll try to update more regularly from now on. If we don't, just smack us.