Prayer request

My sister-in-law Jennifer and my father-in-law both ended up in the hospital today. Jen might have meningitis and does have pneumonia. Bob has undiagnosed stomach pain - they are thinking pancreatitis. So, if you get this and have a 30 second window, please pray for them. Thanks.

See you at my house Sunday!

some responses to book and date choice...

Hi all!
I have gotten the following from various people:
From Vivian:
I found the book on the Christian Book Distributors web page for $1.99 plus shipping. I paid $15. I think we should go with the book. Maybe some folks can go together for $2 and save on shipping.

March 1 after church is fine with me. We can order lunch out or bring a bag lunch. We have to check with the church first to see if anything else is going on.

from Beth:
I went online and got it for 1 cent, plus less than 4 dollars shipping. It came in a few days. March 1st is fine with me.

from Susan:
I am happy to order from Amazon - that is not a problem. It doesn't look like the book is available from the public libraries in Rhode Island, and those wanting their hometown library to order it from out of state will probably not receive a copy right away. My vote is to choose another title, that is more readily available, for the next meeting.March 1 sounds good.

I am pretty sure that Mary told me in person that March 1 was ok.

I posted these answers because they all go directly to me - so I wanted you all to know what was going on in people's heads!

Where to find the next book?

Apparently it's been difficult to find the next book: I Still Believe by Kurt Bruner. I went on Amazon today and found 34 copies to buy. So, that is one option.
We also talked during coffeehour about picking a different book for now, and then that would give people time to order/get this book for next month.
Please weigh in on this!

Also, I know that I offered either the 21st or 28th of Feb at my house, but Katie is flying on both days and Daniel's birthday is the 28th... so I spoke before thinking (what else is new?)

What about March 1 in the afternoon after church?

Cool church choir

I got forwarded this site by my adopted sister... It's a church choir doing a dance of sorts. They wear white gloves and all black and do it in front of a black light. The song is not too long. Very cool visual.

http://www.mychurch.org/blog/30635

We finally met on 90 Minutes!

So, we had a very cozy meeting at Mary's house this past Saturday. I think that the consensus on the book was that Don Piper is a little full of himself and his wife deserves sainthood! Of course, we attributed that to the "Texan male" in him. :)

We also discussed the relatively same experience that people who are near-death tell about. Also much discussion on
- whether he had a pulse and the medical possibilities,
- if the book should have been named "the purpose of my life"
- that we felt that he helped people with terminal illnesses to not be afraid

We went off on many tangents as always - no Vivian there to keep us off the slippery slope I guess. :)

The next book is going to be I Still Believe by Kurt Bruner. He interviews naysayers to Christianity to see why they are choosing not to believe. Lots of short anecdotes in this book... not one long story. The meeting will be at my house in February - maybe the 21st or 28th?
As always - feel free to weigh in on this. I think that food WILL be part of the agenda because we just seem to be an eating kind of group. :)

Thoughts from Mary

I wanted to add my thoughts about the book since I will be away. I liked the description of Heaven as it kind of jived with my brief glimpse, but I wondered how influenced it was in his mind with how much he knew about visions in the Bible. When I was a child I had a very limited knowledge of what heaven should look like. Interesting. Also I thought the man was insufferably self- centered. You never really get any sense of what the people around him were like. Maybe that could be the result of hurting so badly???

Cookie guidelines

So, I haven't been in church for 2 weeks... I am hoping that someone can tell me if there is consensus on the cookie swap... how many? Are we swapping among ourselves or helping out the youth group? Katie made her required 3 dozen today. YAY! Now - how many more?

Also - have you all finished 90 Minutes in Heaven yet? There's little chatter on the real reason for this blog! I like it so much better than the last book. I found that I have wanted to go back twice to read over the description of heaven.

I also picked up a book while home in PA for Thanksgiving. I think it is called I still believe... and, though it is not yet opened up, from the cover I gather that it's a kind of come back book for Christians to respond to naysayers. Any help I can get you know? Those of you who know me well, know how inarticulate I can be. :)