Church Festival

Hi everyone,

We have once again been crazy busy. We have participated in all the activities mentioned in the last blog.

A week ago Friday we participated in Mike and Karen's wedding. It was an evening outdoor wedding. The setting was in a large perennial garden. The weather was perfect. Peggy, Amanda, Joshua and Brian provided live music. The whole thing was beautiful. We were all treated to a nice meal and a huge fireworks show.

Last weekend was a flurry of activity. We were involved in preparing for the church office grand opening.
Sunday morning began with staging the Interface band for Sunday worship. They are a 6 member band from Fort Meyers Florida. We had lunch with them at Nicki's house. Nicki is our ministries director at the Colby church. She is a graduate of the Fort Meyers Masters Commission program. She is a phonomenal blessing to this ministry.

Sunday afternoon we set up for the concert. Interface blessed our community with a great concert. After the concert was the cookout and jumbo inflatable toys. Fun was had by all who came. At 9:00 P.M. we showed the movie Over the Hedge on our school football field outdoors.
Several dozen people were introduced to our church family at this event. We were excited about the success of it all.

Our new office in Colby "The Gathering Place" will meet many needs of our church. It will be staffed during normal business hours. It will be home to many small group meetings, bible study meetings, counseling appointments, a coffee bar open to the public,  a reading library, free wireless internet to the public, small concerts or worship, and hopefully a hipanic service will be held there on Sundays while we have our regular service at the High School. Pastor Gayland is trying to find a Hispanic pastor.

We are excited about Pastor's vision to grow this church. We were also introduced to a couple that was hired by the church. Preston and Amy will be the children's pastor role and Amy will help staff the Colby office. Preston and Amy join Zach as our worship pastor, Nicki as our Ministries director, and Daniel, our youth pastor. All of these staffers are enthusiastic hard working people all are under 30 years old. What a blessing to work with great young people.

On Thursday Mike and Karen blessed us taking us to Eau Claire to Fanny Hill dinner theatre. We enjoyed a great play and meal. It was a real treat as activities like this are more rare to parents of 6 children. It seems you never have enough time or cash. It was a very enjoyable double date.

Nicholas and Ethan were treated to a birthday outing this week with Grandma and Grandpa Haines.

As of today, Sat morning, Charlotte, Peggy, and Becky are preparing for a huge bridal shower for Amanda. They all stayed up all night working. It is this afternoon.

Brian's work this past  2 weeks included adding on to a deck, a plumbing project, and is now working on replacing a partial church roof. It is 100 years old and needed new lumber installed,and new flashings fitted into the brick. It will take about a week.
Brian also prepared an apartment for a new tenant coming from Richmond VA.
 
Keep in touch everyone. We enjoy hearing from y'all!

The Haines family