April 2020 Update

I have a feeling this is going to be short because, as I imagine is true for most if not all of you, we haven’t been doing much in the past month with everything canceled and being told to stay home.

I got my last professional haircut about a month ago, and I’m due again, but fortunately since I’m mostly bald, I think between Krista and myself, we can take care of it without me looking unfit to appear in public.  And I don’t appear in public very much anymore anyway, so we’ve got that going for us.

Family birthdays this month are Carissa on March 23 and granddaughter Bea’s first birthday on March 24.

We’ve taken more walks than usual lately since there’s nothing else to do, with short trips to Hamlin Beach, Holley Falls, Mt. Albion Cemetery, and various places along the Erie Canal to try to experience different walk locations.

Krista at the top of Holley Falls

Holley Falls

From the top of the tower at Mt. Albion Cemetery

Don't lean back too far just to get a good picture!

Found these graves in the cemetery. I wonder if we're related?

We were surprised recently by some spring snow—only a “sugar coating” that soon melted, but this week has been especially cold, and we’ve woken up to a dusting of snow for the past several days.

For our Sunday worship at home, we’ve been watching a sermon series from a local church, Northridge Church in Rochester, called Unfiltered Jesus.  We’ve been enjoying them and being challenged by them.  If you’re interested, here’s the link to the series:  https://www.youtube.com/user/NorthridgeRochester/videos.

April 11 was National Barbershop Quartet Day, and I celebrated by wearing my barbershop chorus shirt and missing singing with my quartet.  ☹

Our Easter was quiet, as I’m sure all of yours was too, but we had a great home church service and excellent ham dinner, even if it was with only the five of us here.  But our difficult circumstances don’t change the eternal joy we have because our Savior conquered the grave and lives forever.  Because He lives, we too shall live!

Maybe by May, we’ll be able to have our crazy, busy lives again.  Is that something we want?  Hmm.

March 2020 Update

This month we celebrated Ella and Cody’s 6th anniversary on 2/22, Caitlin and Ben’s 4th anniversary on 3/5, my brother Ken’s birthday on 3/6, and Kortney’s birthday on 3/17.

Taking a walk with the Mickles on a Sunday afternoon

Levi and Zuzu fighting for popcorn (Zuzu won)

Of course, the Corona virus is foremost in just about everyone’s mind, and it has definitely had an impact on our family.  With Hannah, Kevin, and Abigail all working in the health care industry, we are especially praying for their safety and health.  Abigail already was forced to leave work and quarantine herself at home because she treated someone who later tested positive for Corona.  She has had no symptoms, so we’re praying she is OK and will be able to go back to work soon.  Our church services were canceled, my chorus was canceled, and at work we are being told to work from home as much as possible.  Some of my job I can do from home, but some I can’t, so I’ve had to come into work every day this week so far.

When this crisis was still relatively new, Amelia, Zach, Jem, and Levi took a train trip to visit Cai, Amy, Carissa, Matt, Ruby, Caitlin, and Ben.  We did notice someone all goggled and masked at the train station when I dropped them off, but mostly it was pretty normal.  They had a great time spending a long weekend with them, playing games, sharing meals, and visiting.

Waiting for their train (I've never seen our train station this crowded!)

While they were gone, Krista and I had a foretaste of being empty nesters.  We think we’ll do fine.  We definitely missed them, but the house was nicely quiet, and Krista said it stayed clean for much longer.

I took a day off while they were gone, and Krista and I visited Niagara Falls.  The weather wasn’t perfect, but Niagara Falls is always a great outing.

Cave of the Winds

Cave of the Winds, Bridal Veil, American Falls

Cave of the Winds, looking towards Canadian Falls

 Three Sisters and Little Brother Islands

 American and Canadian Falls from the Observation Tower

Looking toward the American and Canadian Falls

View down the Niagara River

Lunch at Red Coach Inn with a view of the Niagara River

I am praying that all of you stay safe and healthy, and remember God is not surprised by this crisis.  He is still in control and worthy of all praise!  The question is not “Why do some suffer and die?” but is “Why don’t we all suffer and die?”  It is only by His grace that any of us live, because we all deserve death for rebelling against our Creator.  But God, in His amazing grace, didn't leave us with our death sentence.  Because of His great love for us, instead He sent Jesus to die for us.  Jesus willingly came and took our death and gave us His eternal life.  He took all our sin and gave us His perfect righteousness.  And He proved His victory over sin and death and hell by rising from the grave three days after He died.  Now, all we have to do is surrender to Him, trust solely in Jesus' sacrifice by the power of His grace and through the faith He gives us, repent of our sins by the power of the Holy Spirit, and we can again have the perfect fellowship with God that He planned from before time began.

Until a hopefully non-quarantined April!

February 2020 Update

The news for the month since I wrote last unfortunately has to start with some hard things.  The day after I wrote I went with two other men from my church to a Church Security Seminar hosted by our local Family Life Network.  The seminar was excellent and really encouraging in a lot of ways.  The hard parts were driving an hour plus in tricky weather, and the fact that a Church Security Seminar is a needed thing these days.  But we learned that providing a safe place for our church family to worship is essential to being a welcoming and joyful congregation.  We are working on the best ways to implement what we learned there at our church.

The other hard news was the death of a dear lady in our church in a car accident.  Again, an example of our fallen world.  We are confident in her love for the Lord and that she is in heaven with her Savior, but praying for grace and comfort for her family.

On to happier news now!  We celebrated Jemmie’s birthday (1/21), Abigail’s birthday (2/2), Ansa’s first birthday (2/4), Cody’s birthday (2/11), my brother David’s birthday (2/14), and today (2/18) is Caitlin’s birthday.

Jemmie's birthday cheesecake

Abigail's birthday Mississippi Mud cake

We had a combined party for Abigail and Ansa

Birthday buddies!

Krista and I finally got around to breaking out our cross country skis that we’ve had for years.  We got new boots for each other at Christmas in 2018, but never got around to using them last season.  It was fun and tiring (that's me breathing hard in the below video), but I’m glad we did it.  I fell a lot so I obviously need to practice a lot more.  I’m sure with our weather around here, we’ll get more chances.

Our pastor was called away for a family crisis, so I got another opportunity to preach on 2/9.  I preached from Philippians 4:8, and you can hear it here http://www.gracebrockport.org/forms/Media.aspx#/mediafile/291 if you are interested.

This past weekend I participated with my quartet in Singing Valentines.  Our chorus offers them almost every year as a fundraiser, and we sang for about 30 different people between two quartets.  It was really fun singing to people.  Some were delighted, some appreciative, some embarrassed.  There was at least one young woman we sang to that I think may make her man pay dearly for embarrassing her like that.  We sang to her at her job in a hairdressers shop.  Everyone else there loved it, but she almost looked like she might kill someone.

Our Singing Valentine ad

If you go to my quartet's Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/Achording-To-Us-290163201860439/ you can see a video posted by us of the Singing Valentines.  Also check out the Visitor posts for more videos!

Until March!