A building for our church

Hi everyone,
Wow it has been crazy this week.
We just returned from church. The Marshfield church has unanimously approved the purchase and remodeling of the Abbotsford building. In fact, pastor Gayland is considering starting another church plant. Planting churches is the most effective means of evangelism and is the reason missions efforts go on all over the world.

We had 68 in the hispanic service, the most ever.

We just finished our first two weekends of Nightmare, with the biggest night being last night. We had 2100 in attendance, running us at full capacity until 1:45 A.M. Everything is going great. Thank you for your prayers.

We are finishing a project for Peace United Church of Christ in Dorchester. We did a new ceiling for them. It turned out well. We have a few small jobs to do and hope to get started on Nathan and Amanda's house fire late in the week.

It is very possible that we may be involved in the church remodel. Brian has some proposal drawn up and we anticipate being involved.

The church is moving out of the strip mall spot, the Gathering Place. The neighbor store has subleased the space.

We have spent the weekend with Nathan, Amanda, Peggy, Michael and Becky.
They all helped with Nightmare and we have been emptying and planning for the house rebuild.

Between all of these activities plus the regular stuff, we have been passing like ships in the night and trying to get a normal nights sleep.

Thanks for catching up with our blog. Consider yourself personally invited to the Nightmare or to the church. The Nightmare will have it's final weekend this week on the 30th, 31st and 1st. If you come, ask for Brian and he will give you a tour. You will not be disappointed.

In Christ

The Haines family

Another fire!

Hi everyone,

We had another neighborhood fire last night. Just yesterday, the Hanson's three story house was torn down by a backhoe from their recent fire.

Last night, Nathan and Amanda's house was gutted by fire. This is the house that we took a lot of effort restoring last summer for them to move into after their wedding. It appears to be that smoking materials were probably the cause of the fire. It was very heartbreaking for them as the renters agreed not to smoke in the house.

We met with the insurance adjuster and we will likely be the restoration contractor. The damage is serious. We are thankful that no one was hurt in this incident.

In Christ

the Haines family

Nightmare Opening Week

Hi everyone

Things have been crazy.

We have had 2 Nightmare rehearsals, and tonight is our opener.

Brian is the Special effects director, now in the 11th year. Nicholas will be under him as a trainer and supervisor. Joshua will also work with him on the hands on aspects of the job as his direct assistant. Samuel will serve his first year as a tech. We will be responsible for all of the special effects. These include fog, rain, snow, smells, and our flying person stunt. We are looking forward to serving in this amazing outreach. This picture has nothing to do with Nightmare - except that this is what Rosa does with her sparetime and a bottle of lotion. So I guess it can be a Nightmare to clean.

Charlotte is leading the cub scout tiger den, with weekly meetings and outings. They recently toured the Medford radio station.

Nicholas, Joshua, and Samuel will be attending youth camp with the Colby and Marshfield youth groups in Lacrosse the last weekend of the month. (They will skip the last two nights of Nightmare.)

We are still rehearsing for the worship team every Tue and Wed.

We continue to be blessed with great instruction from Ricardo. He continues to stretch our skills and it has been great to watch the boys grow. We are also playing every week for the hispanic service. This also stretches us as we read the sheet music in Spanish, and learn to play the Latino rhythms.

Our church has put in a full price offer on the Abbotsford building and it has been accepted. Financing for the purchase and remodeling is also approved. The only thing that needs to happen is for the Marshfield church to approve the purchase by a vote. Marshfield's pastor and board all agree that we should make this a reality.

Brian will be submitting bids on some of the proposed projects.

We plan to do the improvements immediately after closing and before moving in.

Our other facility, the Gathering Place will be subleased and used by the neighbor store, Mix and Match.

We found a little time to go to a corn maze near Wausau. It was a good time. We went on Brian's Birthday, last Friday night.

Rosa has pretty much potty trained. We will finally have no kids in diapers after 17 years of diapering kids!! YEAH!

Thanks for checking in. Keep in touch.

In Christ

The Haines family

Mark Schultz in Concert

Hi everyone,

We have had a very interesting and busy week.

The highlight of the week was a suprise for Brian. We had our church services on Sunday and our Court of honor for the Boy Scouts on Sunday. We decided to go on a ride, maybe to enjoy the tree colors. What Brian did not know, was that he was being tricked into a birthday suprise!

One of his favorite artists at this time is Mark Schultz. He was hoping for a C.D. for his birthday. He was able to pick a couple of them up at a concert in Minneapolis at Bethel College.

Unfortunately, the whole weekend was very hindered by sickness. Brian, Rosa and Samuel were sick pretty much the whole trip.

We dropped the kids off at Peggy and Amanda's apartment, and they moved them to a hotel while we were at the concert. Charlotte worked so hard on the weekend and was so disappointed how it all turned out. We stayed Monday and visited the Como Zoo, but Brian and Samuel needed to rest in the van and missed out on the whole thing.

Work has been very busy. We have a roof ready to shingle in Abbotsford. We did the tearoff and preparation last week and had a rooftop delivery today. We are also doing a renovation in a church hall in Dorchester and have the framing done and a start on the new lighting.

We had a flood in one of our rentals and need to change a furnace as a result of the damage.

Our church is putting in a offer on the old Christ Lutheran Building in Abbotsford at this time. It will be interesting to see what happens. The congregation has been praying for God's will.
We will post pic's soon. We have many taken, just need to upload them.

Happy Anniversary, Mom and Dad Haines!

Thanks for checking in, everyone.

In Christ,

The Haines family

The movie Fireproof

Hi everyone,

We have been busy doing life. We finished the Colby house and garage roofing project. We finished the Marshfield deck project and the Stratford floor/patio door project.

We will be doing another roof this week in Abbotsford.

We are in preparation for our annual Nightmare project at Believer's church in Marshfield. Brian is still the special effects director, now in the 11th year. We have seen over 100,000 people see the production and are preparing for large crowds again this year. Brian is excited for his part of the production this year. We have finally found a smarter way to produce our low fog. It will be easier, safer, less expensive and will require less man power.

If anyone reading this would like to be involved this year, contact us and we will get you involved. It is an awesome opportunity for influencing the younger generation with a strong positive message. We have many testimonies every year of changed lives.

On Friday, Charlotte, Brian and Andrew went to the just released film Fireproof. It is the second film made by a Baptist church in Georgia. It is a volunteer effort and the results are amazing. The other movie was Facing the Giants. It was being shown in select theatres. We went to Chippewa Falls. We wanted to support it on opening weekend as it affects how it is marketed.
It turns out that in 839 theatres, it was like one of the very highest opening box office movies!

The movie is about a married couple that was in serious trouble in their relationship, but by turning to God and learning some things about sacrifice and selflessness could turn it around. We will not share more, because we hope you will go see it. This movie shares values not like movies that we are so used to seeing. It makes you wonder if movie producers would notice that millions of people would come out to see movies that would help the world's problems rather than help cause the problems. The movie stars Kirk Cameron as the lead actor. It is intense, funny at times and definitely well done.

Nicholas, Joshua, and Samuel camped with the Boy Scouts this weekend at Perkinstown.
The Boy Scouts and Cub Scouts are selling popcorn. Even Ethan is joining Cub Scouts. He is so excited!

Thanks for checking in.

Keep in touch.

In Christ

The Haines family

A busy September

Hi everyone,

I know we always say this, but once again, everything has been crazy. The boys are in school full swing, and the business is very busy.

Last week we built a deck in Marshfield and we are doing roofing and siding work on another hail damaged house and garage in Colby.

In addition to these projects, we needed to service a regular customer who had water damage to a kitchen floor. On Saturday, Brian and Andrew did subfloor and vinyl flooring in a large kitchen, hall, and bathroom. They also installed a patio door. They needed to remove and replace trim and bathroom fixtures.

The weather has been great. Our September has been dry and warm. It has been good work weather.

We are excited about progress at the church. The Hispanic church has needed to move into the school as they have outgrown the Gathering Place. Our service is at 9:00 and theirs is at 11:00. This creates new opportunities. For the last two services, our worship band has been able to participate in the Hispanic service, coming aside with Ricardo in providing a more established service. It is exciting to see what God is doing.


Nicholas, Joshua and Samuel will be going to a Fall camporee with their scout troop this weekend.

The church is also praying about the purchase of a church building in Abbotsford. The building is a traditional building, 10000 square feet and in good structural condition. It will need some updating including roof repairs, main floor bathrooms, handicap access, carpet and paint and possibly much more.

We are still planning to escape winter. We are planning on returning to south MS after Christmas, but are also praying on possibly going to Galveston, TX. We want to be in God's will, we do not care if we are in Biloxi, Galveston, Colby, or Africa as long as God is with us. It seems to make sense for us to return to south MS, as we have a network of relationships there. The needs are still high there.

We are also excited to be planning a vacation to Lake of the Ozarks MO from Dec. 5 to Dec 12. We were able to book a very nice condo. We feel very blessed.

We were declined on the offer we placed on a house in Colby last week. We did not accept their counteroffer.

We had visits from Peggy and Michael, Nathan and Amanda, Uncle Bill and Carol this weekend.

Thanks for checking in on us.

In Christ

The Haines family

Roofing Charlotte's parents house

Hi everyone,

We have been keeping very busy.

We spent this week putting a new roof on the house occupied by Charlotte's parents. It needed a bit of extra TLC as it was rather poor work last time. It has a pitched roof built over a flat roof. It turned out nice this time, we are so glad it is finished.

Charlotte has been busy with cub scout recruiting. She did recruitment outings in the schools and at a rally at the Lions shelter. It was a bit of work.

We put in an offer on a very distressed house in our neighborhood today. We figure it is a 50/50 on getting it. We would like to have control of the improvements. It would also give us a large job so close to home.

Charlotte and the boys have been hitting school hard this week.

We have received great news from Peggy and Michael, and Nathan and Amanda. The engineering firm that Michael was hoping to get into actually made a position for him and he will start working there on the 29th. The firm is expanding into Menomonee, Wi and Eau Claire, and Wausau. After he gets the next licence, it is very possible he could be running a branch in one of these areas. The offer meets his salary expectations. Peggy and Amanda have both been hired by the same company. They are collection positions. They will be able to carpool. It just seems as they are in the center of God's will. Everything is falling into place so beautifully.

Last weekend, we had a family reunion organized by Charlotte. It was attended by about 50 people. Rather than just sit and talk, we organized a murder mystery skit with 10 of us in full character and costume. It was a lot of fun. ( I, Brian was an Indian!!)

This week our work will take us to Marshfield to build a deck, then to Colby for a house and garage roof, also siding repair. This project is another hail damage project.

This week, our Hispanic church will move to the High School. They have outgrown the Gathering Place.

Thanks for checking in.

In Christ,

The Haines family