Hey Dean

Hey Dean,

How are things going? Thanks for calling last week- it was good to hear from you. Your cold is probably gone by now.

Saturday we are going to NY for the day. We used to live there, in fact, we met and got married in the city. We like to go back for visits. We're riding a chartered bus through a travel agency in Norwich.

My mother is having a biopsy on Wed at Backus. Please pray that it isn't cancer. She's in good spirits and "taking things as they come."

Russ has improved his preaching over the past few years. He does a nice job of melding encouragement and a little bit of a challenge, which I think is a great way to do it. If sermons are all one or all the other it can have a negative effect. And I think that the NT and all of Jesus' teachings are the same way- encouraging and comforting, but also challenging. Remember how he told the woman caught in adultery that he did not condemn her, but he also told her to leave her life of sin? - encouragment and a challenge.

I hope all the V's had a nice Thanksgiving. (I don't call it Turkey Day, becuase to me that takes away from the idea that we need to be thankful, and thankful to God for all the blessings he gives us.)

In Christ,
cs