This week our family decided that we would attend Highland Park Baptist Church. We chose it for a lot of reasons. The teaching is sound, the youth ministry is solid, the music is excellent, our friends, the Romisches who we've become very good friends with, attend there, and the church building is three miles from our house, about a five minute drive. We're excited to get more involved. We've already started attending a small group going through a series by Focus On the Family called the Truth Project (there's an article about the series in a recent World magazine) that met last night. It's a really good group made up of mostly adults and a few teenagers. Peter and I have also attended the youth group a few times. It's pretty big, about a hundred people, and we still don't really know anyone yet. We're going to go on the Fall retreat and hopefully meet some more people there.

School has gone pretty well so far, but I still don't have a consistent daily routine established. I have a lot to do everyday and without some kind of rythm it's tough to finish everything everyday. I need to be more diligent with my work too. Pray for me in this area.

The weather was feeling more and more autumnal here until we started getting all this rain. The huge rain systems passing over Chicago have come right across the lake and over the state to Detroit. It drizzled all day yesterday and is doing so again today. My Dad turns fifty today. We were going to go to the Motown museum today before learning that it's closed until October. We're going to have a traditional Anderson birthday party for him this evening: cake, ice cream, presents, and Cuban music.

I'm looking forward to the fall colors. We have three big sugar maples in our backyard that are going to be radiant when they turn. Our entire area is heavily wooded although the trees, especially the oaks, aren't doing as well here as they do in Illiniois. The difference was clearer after we got home from our grandparents' farm in the Rock River Valley. It's still very pretty here.

God has been so good to us, providing us with everything that we need:  a fine house, good friends, an excellent church. Why do we ever worry about anything?

Erick

Sorry about not updating sooner. We didn't have an internet connection the first few days we got here, and I just haven't felt like writing anything lately.

 We got here Tuesday evening and with the help of the Romisches, a family my mom knew because she had grown up in Byron with Mrs. Romisch,  we got the whole truck unloaded that night. The last few days have been really, really boring, taking things out of boxes, moving heavy furniture around. This morning, we went to the Romisches’ church, a Baptist church about twice the size of Lakeland. The whole family seemed to like it, but no one was crazy about it. The sermon was good and so was Sunday school, but no one really liked the music in the contemporary service (this church has a traditional and a contemporary service), which was very well done, but too loud and lacking in content. We’re going to visit a few other churches before we decide on one.

I like our new house, though it’s not home yet. We have more space than we did before, and my room, which I’m sharing with Peter, is comfortable and spacious. It’s been really hard to believe that this is my new home. It still feels like this is all temporary and that we’ll be going back home soon. I thought I was ready for all this. I had no idea how hard it would be. God is good though. This was his doing from the beginning.

“And we know for those who love God all things work together for good , for those who are called according to his purpose,” – Romans 8:28

- Erick