Thursday

How are you today? It's a little cooler this morning than yesterday, but that's OK. Yesterday's temperature drop sure caught my attention. Hey, it's November -- anything can happen.

Yesterday morning I attended the Mitchell Area Ministerial Association (commonly called, and better known as, MAMA) meeting. You've heard my old joke about this. It should be called Hoosier MAMA, since we are all from Indiana. Anyway, I feel these meetings are very important and much good has come from them over the years. We continue to work through benevolent issues, i.e., trying to help the poor in a responsible way without enabling bad choices. It's a constant battle.

A couple of exciting things came out of yesterday's meeting. Blessings in a Backpack is going to start at Burris school really soon. This program sends a few food items home with some of the kids, so they can have an opportunity to eat better over the weekend. I think there are about 200 kids at Burris eligible for this. Capstone Ministries is going to contribute a significant amount of money to help. Schools that have this program have better test scores. Correlation?? The other thing that is on track is a summer meal program. Surrounding communities do this, but Mitchell has not. We are working with the school administrators presently to get it in place. It's all good, important stuff, in my opinion.

After the meeting yesterday, I stopped another minister, one who has been where he is for 24 years. I thanked him for his longevity and faithfulness. I asked him, "Did you ever want to leave?"

"Oh yes!"

"Did you ever try to leave?"

"A few times, but each time the opportunities dried up and door closed."

"Did you ever feel like Jonah?"

"Yes."

I went from that meeting to meet with the girl whose mother died recently. We had a nice talk, and I helped her get some things out of her mother's garage, which I took over to the ReStore. After that I had lunch with colleague, and then it was off to Superior Court I to sit with a grieving mother. That took a lot longer than any of us anticipated. It was interesting, however, to watch all the proceedings and people. Wow, talk about a different world!

No running yesterday and no bike trainer. I simply ran out of time. Rest is good. Ben and I did go get a load of logs before church. We were supposed to get two...

Today is sermon prep day. Interesting passage, 1 Peter 5:1-11, and a good class last night, both of which will make preparation easier and harder: easier in that there is a lot of easily understood material and harder because there is too much to talk about in a relatively short period of time.