​What are you especially thankful for this year?  Some people are again embarking on a thirty day thankfulness challenge on Face Book.   I like to read what friends write for their challenge.  I love the American season of thanksgiving, and Thanksgiving Day, though I am not so fond of seeing Christmas decorations up  before Thanksgiving, and I am not fond of Black Friday encroaching.    What are you especially thankful for this year?

​On Sunday November 20, 2016 at 10am there will be a service of Thanksgiving at Ascension Lutheran Church.  We will prayerfully lift up our praises to God for all the blessings which have been bestowed upon us.  Specifically, we will embrace and affirm the cancer survivors in this community. 

​What are you especially thankful for this year?  Some people are again embarking on a thirty day thankfulness challenge on Face Book.   I like to read what friends write for their challenge.  I love the American season of thanksgiving, and Thanksgiving Day, though I am not so fond of seeing Christmas decorations up  before Thanksgiving, and I am not fond of Black Friday encroaching.    What are you especially thankful for this year? 

We have been blessed to have Vicar Dave and Isaiah Keller with us here at Ascension for almost 2 years. Together we say thanks to Vicar Dave for his ministry in our church community and beyond.  I personally want to thank him for all his assistance given to our church and to me during the time I have been recovering from my injured shoulder.  We all feel we have walked a deep journey with Vicar Dave and Isaiah, especially through the passing to glory of Jeremiah Keller.  We pray God’s strength and courage for all the Keller family.  (Vicar Dave will be serving an interim congregation at Whitehall, Michigan, this June and July, and interviewing in a number of Michigan churches to receive a permanent call. When that first call is confirmed, he will be ordained.  Vicar Dave’s oldest son Elijah is marrying on August 9th.)  

​Thinking ahead to March, Ash Wednesday is on March 5th, beginning the season of Lent for another year.  Lent, with its 40 days, gets me thinking about Jesus being tested in the desert, and the 40 years of wilderness wonderings of the Israelites, a time of struggle and testing for them. I think that for me, Lent began early, in Advent, on Tuesday, December 10th when I slipped on black ice in front of my house and badly damaged my shoulder.