Thoughts from a writing class

It was a treat for me to join with 12-15 others every Monday morning in a writing class offered at our church. We wrote for two hours--sometimes for 5 minutes, sometimes for 15 minutes--following a prompt offered to us by our wise and compassionate teacher. I had never done anything like this before, and found it challenging, rewarding, stretching, and exhausting! One of our prompts was: "I am from..." Think about it - and write your own! I AM FROM… I am from strong and sturdy stock. I am from grandparents who lived in the cold country up north—Minnesota and South Dakota—until finally everyone had had enough of snow and cold, and everyone on both sides of our family moved to California—all but us. I am from Oklahoma, our adopted state—but we fit right in: two OU graduates and parents who didn’t miss an OU home football game until well into their 80’s. I am from the cold and the snow, with snow tunnels to our house, snowsuits to keep warm and snowboots to keep our feet dry. But now… I am from Texas. I don’t miss the snow and cold and having to lift a snow shovel or even having to own one. I am from strong and sturdy stock – from grandparents married to each other way past their Golden wedding anniversaries, and parents who celebrated their 62nd anniversary. I am from the Black Hills of South Dakota with the great stone faces of Mt. Rushmore, an important part of my growing up days, all the way to the Red River crossing into Texas and the Rio Grande at the Texas-Mexico border. I am from the crisp cold wide open spaces of the two Dakotas through the wheatfields of Kansas and Oklahoma to the rich farmland of Central Missouri, to the oil fields of West Texas—and I call it all home.

Fall in Sammamish brings changes in our life

While we can still miss fall in the Ozarks, we have had a most spectacular fall here in Sammamish. The view from our apartment was heavenly as we watched the bright reds and yellows cover the landscape. At the end of October, we moved out of our apartment and began living in our RV. We found ourselves right in the midst of the gorgeous colors in a campground just 8 miles from the church. Our first full day here it was dry and sunny - and we enjoyed a walk kicking the leaves and being part of the "leaf-fall" (as opposed to rainfall or snowfall) as an occasional brisk wind brought them to the ground. It was absolutely spectacular. We loved it..enjoyed the beauty of all the colors, the smell of fall in the air with its crispness, the crunch of the leaves under our feet. And we were absolutely amazed at the size of some of the platter-sized leaves that were falling around us. Now the rains have come...day after day..and finally we are enjoying a day of sunshine today--but we find that most of the leaves have fallen and the colors are diminishing. How fortunate we were to be right here in this place at exactly the right time to enjoy a fall that rates right up there equal to the Ozarks! We have new emails, so please make note of these, if you have not already done so: jerrymaxhilton@gmail.com marymhilton70@gmail.com

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We will spend the next month in the area - sometimes at a campground and sometimes parked on the church parking lot. We plan to spend Thanksgiving evening in Sequim with my cousins, Carl & Sue - what a blessing they have been to us during our year in Sammamish. I have eleven first cousins, and this is the first time I have ever been able to spend time with one of them, really getting to know them, and becoming friends--such a treat!

I hope your fall has been a blessing to you, and you have been able to enjoy some of God's glorious colors.

Midland "kids" all grown up!

Jerry says frequently that this kind of happening is one of the major blessings of being in ministry--the opportunity to watch children grow up into beautiful responsible adults--and to know that you were a part of that whole process. Living in the Seattle area now are Stephanie (Howard) and her husband, Cooper Askins (on the left and right in the lower picture). Having been married in Mexico recently by the Rev. Lana Russell (formerly of Midland), the newlyweds came for church, and brought with them their weekend guest, Emily (Booth) Berry (in red.) The pastor, Lana, is her mother. Emily lives in San Francisco now. All these "kids" (not an appropriate term to use for these adults, but I guess they'll always be kids to us! Shucks, Jerry still refers to our 61 year old friend Greg here in Sammamish as one of his kids!) call Midland FPC home. So it was truly a joy to share some time with them at worship, and our mission speaker that morning turned out to be someone Cooper works with in south Seattle. God is so good!