The day began around 3 a.m. for me today. As I stated last night, had an orchestra member having surgery and she was first on the docket this morning, sooooo, I got up, had a bit of coffee and headed out the door around 4:15. I arrived at the hospital a little before 5 a.m. and after prayer, stayed with her husband until about 8:45 then headed to another part of the hospital to do a little more visiting.
Around 10, I headed back to Enterprise to do a little work before lunch.
At 3:00 I pulled the trailer down to the location of our Fall Festival and set up for a start time of 5 p.m. It was a pretty good night with a nice turnout. Approximately 1000 folks came through the area. All said and done, we arrived back home at 8 p.m. Whew!
Rest tonight then staff meeting in the morning and choir practice tomorrow night of our Christmas music.
See ya,
John

It was a great day of worship at Hillcrest. The congregational worship was a very responsive time and the choir really did a super job with the piece, “Thou, O Lord”.
With youth choir this afternoon went well, although the kids were not much in the mood to get the job done. Oh, they were ok, just not much in the mood to work hard, but they did fine and we got, at least, a little done.
One of my orchestra members is having back surgery tomorrow so I’ll be getting to Dothan around 5 a.m. for prayer. Sure appreciate the prayers. Hmmm, getting up around 3:30 to pull out around 4:15 will make a rather long day by the time I have the Fall Festival tomorrow evening.

Stay in touch,
John

The day began as a normal day with me heading into the office early in order to continue rewriting an arrangement the choir is doing for Christmas this year. I finished up around 11:30 or so and decided I would leave it there. I headed home, changed clothes and decided to head out to the golf course. First time I’ve played since surgery. Swing wasn’t anything to write home about and the walk was a bit slow for “normal play” but it was nice to get out.
I’ve had supper now and will head up to the Youth Worship Center at the church around 9 p.m. Tonight is the finals for Enterprise’s Got Talent contest of which I am one of the judges.
Nothing much else to report. Patty is doing so much better as is my knee. We appreciate your faithfulness in keeping up with us.
Blessings,
John

It was an odds and ends type day as I slept in just a bit after a long day yesterday, then changed the oil in the truck before heading into the office to get some work done.
We had a flooring guy come in today to see why some of our wood flooring seems to be blistering. Found a great deal of moisture under the area where the blisters are. Went outside to see that the gutter downspout is feeding into a low area and once the ground gets saturated, the slab takes in the moisture. Soooooo, the next thing is to extend the downspout out beyond the house and build up the dirt area close to the house hoping this will fix things. The guy told us we were to let this area dry about 2 months and he would come back to do another moisture reading. If the moisture has decreased to a normal range, the company would come in, take out the damaged pieces and replace them.
I went to the office following that wonderful bit of news to work on a piece of music I’ve rescored for our Christmas presentation. The choir has been working on this piece for a little while and I haven’t heard a significant amount of improvement so I am redoing it to have for a special rehearsal Tuesday night.
I’d like to walk 9 holes on the golf course tomorrow afternoon if I can. It will be my first time swinging a club since my Oct. 5 knee surgery.
We’ll see.
Thanks for checking in. We appreciate your prayers,
john

We are progressing toward the Christmas music as we completed several tasks toward the Christmas program on Dec. 9-11. After a day in the office, I had a meeting this evening with the tech crew bouncing ideas of how to make this most successful. The Audio guys were represented as were lighting, Video, and drama.
We sat around a conference for about 1 1/2 hrs discussing everything concerning the program.
Tomorrow I’ll follow up on a great deal of that as well as putting the final touch on choir rehearsal planning.
Man, it’s busy and tiring. Thanks for the prayers,
John

Yeah, it’s Monday and it was a good day…not crazy at all. Got a few things accomplished and Patty is continuing to recover from her allergy attack and subsequent throat infection. The ole knee is showing daily improvement but I’ll be glad when it’s “golf worthy”. Right now I’m thinking; “not so much”. Oh well.
Hey, last night we had our first orchestra Christmas rehearsal. Things went well and we’re looking forward to watching things progress.
Hey, thanks for checking in.
Blessings,
John

Well of course this day began like the other Sundays. Rehearsal with orchestra and praise team began at 8 a.m. so I was “up and at em” early this morning. Services went well with virtually no glitches so that was great. We are still battling with heavy spiritual warfare in each service which leaves us exhausted but always excited when we see God work in and through us each service.
The youth choir began 3 new songs tonight to be presented on Wednesday, November 16th. This choir is unlike any I’ve worked with. Of the 38 regular attendees, approximately 34 read music. This makes it very easy to work new music and get it ready to sing. They did a super job this past Wednesday and are already looking forward to singing in November.
Following youth choir and supper, I had our first orchestra rehearsal for the Christmas music. This was an introduction meeting just to run through the music and let them hear it then let them each take their music home with them to work it.
Got home around 20 minutes to 9:00. Kinda tired now….ha.

Appreciate your continued prayers as we do the work before us.
John

I took a day off today. The first since I came on board as the Interim Worship Pastor. Whew! It was nice. We didn’t do much of anything, ran a few errands and just took it easy. Hey, picked up a new iphone so that’s gonna be fun to set up.
Looking forward to Sunday and what God will do with the Hillcrest family.
Patty is getting better although each evening, about the time the sun sets, the cough moves in and really keeps her busy and frustrated for a good part of the night. She has some pretty strong cough med but it kinda knocks her out so she waits to take it closer to bed time.
I turned down yet another opportunity to play a little golf…the knee just isn’t ready. This is a bit frustrating and disappointing but I keep trying to tell myself it hasn’t been all that long since the surgery. Just over 2 weeks.
Nothing much else going on. Appreciate you checking in!
Blessings,
John

Patty went to the dr today to see that her sinus junk was on the mend. He said she looked to be heading in the right direction so that was good news.
I spent the day in the office doing the usual. Thinking of taking a day off and taking it easy. I had considered going to the golf course but was a bit sore today after the long day yesterday so I’ve called that off. I’m disappointed to say the least. It’s only been 2 weeks since surgery but I’m ready for things to get back to normal.
As always, I appreciate you checking in on us!

Blessings,
John

Another full day and then the service tonight where the youth choir sang. They did a great job!!
Another day in the office tomorrow. Several of our staff are on mission in Ethiopia with a team from our church so I’m in to cover for some of them.
Patty will head to the dr tomorrow to try and help knock out this junk she brought back from Ft Lauderdale.
We appreciate your prayers.
John