Great Sunday!

Well, yesterday was a good day! God sent over 150 people to church at The Croosing @ WF yesterday. We are meeting more & more people who are meeting God for either the first time, or in a new way.. It's very cool.

After church, about 80 of us headed over to the facility at Lions' Park for a Thanksgiving dinner. We had someone deep fry a turkey, and someone else grilled one. They were fantastic. Kristin, Chrissie & I went in on a big ham, and that was a big hit too. We had loads of mashed potatoes & tons of dessert. Too bad I was really too busy to eat much! (Hanging onto Aidan was a real task. He wouldn't stay away from the dessert table.) We sang a few songs & celebrated communion after the dinner, and then packed up 66 shoeboxes for Operation Christmas Child, with "stuff" brought by people from church! Hopefully, the pictures will be on the website sometime soon.

Marc, Kelli, and Andrew are up here. They came early Saturday morning. Josh and Kristin spent the night Sat. night also. Tonight they'll all be staying at Kristin's house, and we're all heading to Des Moines for Thanksgiving. We watched a family movie last night, projected on the living room wall (that's a benefit of getting to use church equipment now & then!) Marc & Josh stayed up very late playing video games. We all slept in this morning...for the most part.

I went to the chiropractor this morning, as my neck / upper back has hurt a great deal over the past several days. He said I have a golf ball hidden in there. Ouch. Had my Sunday headache again yesterday. But I'm trying to take it easy this week. No school will help.

Well, the guys are headed out to fish for possibly the last fishing trip of the season. I'm going to try to catch up on the laundry & put a roast in for dinner.

Email me soon!
Love,
Kelly

Foggy Day

Hello,
It's Wednesday, almost noon. We just returned from dance class & taking the white car to Precision to have the leak in the power steering fluid fixed. Eric's at a ministerial luncheon at a local church, Braden's taking another math test (so far we've tested him 9 chapters ahead of where he was, and he's still getting A's, usually 97+ on each test); Holland and Aidan are playing, and I'm stealing a moment of peace.

My back and neck are pretty stiff. I had a chiropractor adjustment Monday, but still need some serious stretching. I had a headache most of yesterday. My Sunday afternoon headache seems to be dragging on. (No, I'm not sure why I get a headache every Sunday afternoon / evening. Am trying to be sure to get my usual caffeine, thinking that the Sun. a.m. rush was limiting my coffee intake, and that may be the culprit, but it doesn't seem to make a difference.)

Tonight we have 2 couples coming for dinner to discuss the youth ministry they will be starting. Tomorrow night we have 1 couple from church coming, so we can get to know them. They also live in Otsego. Friday night Eric has arranged for a sitter, so I guess we're going out!

Well, I'm off to make some lunch & probably referee some more fights between my children. Whew...we need prayer on that one.

Love,
Kelly

Sunday

Hello, Y'all,

It's 8:05 Sunday night, and I thought I'd drop a line on this site.
We had a great day. Eric spoke on "Surprised by God's Indulgence" (grace). He used the story of the prodigal son. It was fantastic, and with a tearjerker drama reading (a modern version of the prodigal son), and an emphasis on extending grace & forgiveness to others, many people told us how much God worked in their hearts today. We had between 135-150 (we had a new guy do the count and it was a little off), so the room felt pretty full. More first-timers. Next week we're having a Thanksgiving banquet--turkey and all--at a local facility after church. Don't worry, mom and grandpa & grandma...I'm not in charge of it AT ALL. No sweat. I just have to roast a turkey to take. After the meal, we'll be packing & wrapping shoe boxes for Operation Christmas Child.

We had a couple over for lunch, and I made waffles and scrambled eggs with the unused eggs I'd prepared to scramble for the brunch here yesterday. We had lots of sausage left over, too, so it provided an easy lunch today. Fortunately, we were able to take a nap while Aidan slept--our company didn't stay too long. Braden got to go play with like 5 other boys at the Fellner's house, and he had a BLAST. Then we canceled our Sunday evening meeting where we usually evaluate the morning's service with about 10 core people, and took the family to see The Incredibles instead (at "church", of course! Aidan thinks our church shows movies!) It was a VERY family-friendly film, with an emphasis on a strong family bond. Grrrreat!

The brunch yesterday went well. We had 7 adults and several children. A teenage girl and a man from our church watched the kids for us in the basement, where they ate pop tarts & had juice boxes & grapes. I served bagels, eggs, sausage & fruit. Eric shared with them the background of our church and what we're all about, as well as what membership requires, etc. In the afternoon we went to Tara's daughter Kylie's birthday party for a little while, but came home early so Eric could work. We are quite tired tonight.

Eric was just on the phone with Marc, making Thanksgiving plans. Wow, time flies!

Love,
Kelly

This new thingy

Hi Y'all,
Taking a cue from the other Kelli Dykstra, I'm going to give the blogging thing a shot in lieu of emailing everyone. So the way it works (I think) is that I send you and email, and you just click the link to see what's going on in the Dykstra home up here in Otsego, MN. I can include photos, too, if I can figure out how to do it. I suppose this way you can check it if you want to, and I won't bug uninterested people with email Dykstra Updates. We'll see how it goes!
Love,
Kelly