Saturday evening from 5pm to 8pm you can come to the community building in Lovilia and have supper, buy some homemade baked goods, and bid at an auction. All proceeds will benefit the family of Colton Matthew Groenendyk, infant son of Stephanie Pearson and Matt Groenendyk of Lovilia. They are having time off from work and extra travel expenses to tend to Colton in the hospital in DesMoines. Come support them and have a good meal and shop at the auction.
Do You Have Empathy for the Acmes and Nadirs of Human Experience?
The what? If you do not know about the acmes and nadirs, you are not alone. This phrase was in a report from my daughter’s college in a story about a professor who is also a writer. It tweaked my curiosity so I pulled out the dictionary to solve the mystery. Acme is the highest point of something and nadir is the lowest point of something. So now you have it and you can thrill your family and confuse your enemies by lacing your conversation with those two words.
Economic Downturn
The news is full of negative data on the stock market, unempoyment, layoffs, and cost of living. So I think it is time to put it all in perspective.
Mr. Moore wrote from Guatemala that he was at an annual village festival He noticed a poorly dressed family standing and watching the music and so on. A man was nearby selling ice cream cones for ten cents each. Soon the father went over and paid for one cone and returned to his wife and two small children. They then passed the cone back and forth until all four had some of the ice cream.
A laywoman who works for a church mission in Chile said their rental home had a woodburning stove that heated one room and that is all the heat for the home. They longed for more warmth. Then one day a neighbor lady and her young daughter came to visit. Everyone sat near the wood stove and chatted. The neighbor said the warm stove was very nice. The little girl said yes but I will really miss the warmth when we leave. Then it struck the missionary that most homes in town had no stove to heat the home in winter at all. She realized her wood stove was a luxury in Chile.
So, we have to put everything in perspective. If we have food on the table daily, clothes on our backs, and a roof over our heads we should count our blessings.
And when we have a shortage of funds we still can offer our time and talent. As quoted from Pauline R. Kezer,”When you do nothing, you feel overwhelmed and powerless. But when you get involved, you feel the sense of hope and accomplishment that comes from knowing you are working to make things better”.
Lent
Lent begins with Ash Wednesday on February 25th. Attend the church of your choice and start the journey to Easter. The Knights of Columbus, a Catholic men’s organization to support the family and do community service has fish fry suppers every Friday of Lent at the KC club in Albia. The Lovilia members will be serving the meal on March 20th. If you enjoy a catfish or shrimp meal, be sure to go. All the profits from the fish frys go to local community charities.
I hope other churches in Lovilia or nearby who have members in Lovilia will send me announcements about their activities so I can post them here on the website.