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All:

I have received word from very reliable sources (my wife) that we will be having Sunday School this week in the Family Life Center...in our old room...as usual. (Cue applause!) I know that the highly mobile and random schedule has been difficult to follow over the last few eeks, but I assure you it was worth it to allow the Church to help those evacuees of Hurricane Ike. We appreciate your flexibility and understanding as our Sunday School's location evolved week to week (and, that dear friends, is probably the only time you will see the term "evolve" on this Blog!)

So... please join us all as we have Sunday School with our original teacher in our original room. We look forward to seeing everyone on Sunday.

I am informed that the ladies had a social/meeting last night and that a great time was had by all! (And, do not worry, ladies, those husbands of yours "enjoyed" the opportunity to learn how to appreciate the myriad things you do all day through the experience of a few hours alone with kids...plus, it gave them (me) the opportunity to let them eat sugar and watch football...okay, it really gave them (me) the opportinity to catch up on the dramatic twists and turns in that joyful narrative called "Dora the Explorer" and witness the amazing ways that progeny can manipulate allegedly educated adult males into doing whatever they want you to by the liberal use of screaming, crying or pouting.)

In the interest of social advancement for the guys' side...(and under the heading "turn about is fair play") let's put our heads together to see what the gentlemen of the group would like to do for their get-together. Just let me know.

We will be having another family social event on November 2. Please put that date on your calendars.

Hope all is well with everyone and we look forward to seeing you on Sunday!

Matt

Sunday Update and Prayer request

(Amy Freeman has informed us all that the Bentley class will be meeting at the McDonald's in front of Albertson's during the Sunday School hour (10a.m.) to fellowship and catch up with everybody as we will not have access tour room. Andrew will most likely teach a great lesson or test everybody for cholesterol (whichever is more applicable!). We look forward to seeing everybody there!)

I wanted to forward a prayer request that we received from Angela Kincaide:
"I hope you all are doing well. Please pray for a friend of ours - Alfredo M. He owns a small Italian Restaurant in Texarkana, TX. He has a wife, a 4 yr. old son, and newborn baby girl. Alfredo was in a terrible car wreck and was air lifted to UAMS in Little Rock, AR. He has been in a coma for the past 10 days. He cooks and runs his own small business and they are struggling not only for his life, but also to keep the family business open to generate some income to pay the bills. Please Pray for his full recovery, for God to provide for this family and their business, and for Alfredo's salvation (unknown)."

This Sunday--Ike Schedule

Hello everyone! Drew Gillen, man about town and knower of all things that need to be known, sent me this e-mail. I wanted to post it as soon as I got it to allow everyone to know of the change in the schedule. We will see everyone in the Chapel on Sunday.

Everyone:

Hope you all are doing well. I just received word that because Green Acres will be housing evacuees from Hurricane Ike, all SMBS classes that meet in the FLC will be meeting in the Chapel on Sunday morning. We will have a time to spend together as our class in there before hearing a lesson with all the other classes.

I'm sure that I don't have all of our class members on this email, so please forward as necessary. If you have blogger status, please post to there.

Thanks.

Drew

Schedule modfications

Happy Tuesday everyone! Upon reviewing these last few posts, I have realized that I have been updating the blog every Tuesday for a while. There is nothing special about Tuesday, per se, I guess it is the time of the week when I have digested all the information from the weekend and am unable to acknowledge that I am in a new week yet. (Or it is just when I wake up from my reverie and remember that I need to post on the blog...probably the latter...)

Anyway, I hope everyone had a safe and fun Labor Day weekend! As each of you no doubt know by now, Gustav has modfied several things at the church. On this past Sunday, we were unable to meet for Sunday School as usual as the FLC was occupied by 140 of the evacuees from the Gulf Coast. At present, no one is quite sure when the authorities in Louisiana will allow the evacuees back to their homes (though , encouragingly, it seems the storm, while pretty bad, did not wreak the havoc Katrina did 3 years ago). Therefore, this Sunday's schedule is flexible as we want to be as accomodating and helpful as possible to assist everyone from the Gulf Coast return as safely and efficiently as possible. So, stay tuned to this blog (which I promise is probably the first and only time this blog will ever be considered to contain "breaking news"!) and we will let everyone know when and where (or if) we will be meeting.

On a slightly related note, I regret to inform everybody (and don't say I didn't warn you all) that I am slated to teach this Sunday as Andrew will not be there to share his wisdom. ( And, before you ask, no, I am not sure how many people he went through before settling on me, but no doubt it was plenty!) The plan (as of Tuesday) is that we will begin our study of I Samuel. (this will allow Andrew to come back the next week, correct all the inaccuracies and get us on the I Samuel train...)

I hope everyone is maintaining their grip on sanity as we face all this rain and the inevitable "cabin fever" the little ones will get. We have DVDs of Barney and Max and Ruby loaded and ready to go if necessary. (For Amanda and Hammond, and any of you lucky enough to not know who "Max and Ruby" are: they are a jaunty pair of bunnies who are brother and sister and who have little adventures...the older sister is bossy and a bit of a nag and the younger Max is a rebellious troublemaker...they apparently have no parents, but live in a house and are visited frequently by their doddering and partially senile grandmother. All in all, a joyous little bit of animation that shows that even the craziest idea could potentially be a hit for kids...)

Let us know if we can be of any help this week, or if you have any prayer requests.

Matt