A historic service

Hi everyone,

We just wanted to give a praise report about today's service. We held a preconstruction service in the new building in Abbotsford. We had a great turnout of over 140 and it was a great time of ministry, worship, fellowship and eating. It really seems God's hand is on this work as He is blessing and increasing every week.

We will be meeting at Colby High for a time to allow for construction in the new building. Once again we invite anyone to be a part of this exciting season in the life of this church.

We worked a hard week, including Saturday to allow us to take a day off this Tuesday. We have had some passes for the Cedar Creek Lodge waterpark and will enjoy the day as a mini vacation.
We are happy that the colder weather has moderated a bit.

We will be back to work on Nathan and Amanda's house most of the week and will be working on the bathroom and drywall.

Things will be a bit less crazy as things slow down at Thanksgiving.

Our Thanksgiving plans include serving our community at the annual Colby thanksgiving meal and hosting the Thanksgiving meal at our house with Charlotte's parents, Michael and Peggy, Nathan and Amanda, and Becky.

Thanks for checking on the blog, we will hopefully update often over the next couple of weeks.

In Christ,

The Haines family

A pre construction service

Hi everyone,

It has been been super crazy again this week.

We have been hard at it at Nathan and Amanda's house. As of yesterday we have the new drywall in all rooms except the bathroom, which was not ready.

We have pulled out of this job to complete a project promised before the fire.
It is a flooring project in Hewitt.

We want to invite you to be a part of history. We will have a pre construction service in our new building in Abbotsford this Sunday, at 11:00 A.M. It will be a combined service with the hispanic church. A meal will follow. Brian, Charlotte, Joshua, Nicholas, and Samuel will all be involved in the worship team.

We are also dealing with cold weather, it is going to be less than 10 degrees tonight.

Nicholas and Joshua have completed their driving school and have passed their written tests.

We are in the process of buying a house in Abbotsford.

Thanks for checking our blog. Sorry it is so brief. Keep in touch.

In Christ,

The Haines family

Hearts at home conference

Hi everyone,

Sorry it has been so long since the last update.

The last two weeks have been a juggling match of Nightmare, worship band, meetings with insurance adjusters, gutting a house and finding time to submit a proposal to the insurance company.

For those of you who are not in the know, Nathan and Amanda had a house fire in their house, which was rented out. Pictures and info are in the last post.
At this time, the entire house is completely gutted to the studs with the exception of one small bedroom and a pantry closet, which were the only salvagable spaces. The adjuster and cleaning contractor thought that the master bedroom could be saved, but when they came this Friday, we discovered that the heat released the paper from the drywall. Service Master says this was a very hot interior fire. All plastics were melted in every room.
The bedroom was saved because the door was shut.

For those of you in the south, we are also dealing with cold weather. This past week we had 3 days of record highs, reaching in the 70's, but now we are in the low 20's at night. We have had a bit of snow.

We are excited for Charlotte, she headed off to Rochester MN, Friday afternoon for a Hearts at Home conference. She went alone, however ran into a couple of ladies that she knew. It featured nationally known speakers and parenting experts. Her life as a stay at home homeschooling mom is not always an easy one, and this was a great opportunity for her to get her battery charged. She returned refreshed. This was the first time she went anywhere alone in nearly 10 years. She would recommend this conference to all moms and is inviting you to join her next year. The conference is in Rochester, MN on November 6-7, 2009. Just contact her and we will start planning.

This afternoon we were so blessed to be special guests at the Dorchester Peace United Church of Christ Harvest Dinner. We were invited to the first event in their newly remodeled hall. They were so gracious to us. They served us a great meal and were so thankful for the work that was completed. They are truly a great congregation of believers.

Our church will likely close on the building in the next week or two and plans on holding one service there the Sunday before Thanksgiving. It will be a joint service with the Hispanic church at 11:00. You are invited. The building is the old Christ Lutheran and Cornerstone Baptist, across the street from the Abbotsford post office, or just north and west of the junction of 13 and Bus. 29 in Abbotsford.

We will be working hard on Nathan and Amanda's house, we need to get it closed in before seriously cold weather. Fortunately, they had a good insurance policy and should have everything taken care of.

Our plan to return to Mississippi will likely be altered a bit as we deal with this house fire and church move and likely remodel. We plan to head out when these 2 issues are under control. As you all know how we feel about winter, you can be assured we will be doing our best.

Thanks for checking in.

In Christ,

The Haines family

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