And We're Off

This week officially marks the busy season at work for both Joel and me. The City Rescue Mission held its 102nd annual banquet at Horizon's Conference Center on Tuesday night with over 700 people in attendance, the largest ever as far as we know. The food was scrumptious (and we're not ashamed to admit that we traipsed clear across the hall to compare dessert tables), the client testimonies were inspiring, and the "sermon" from Mark chapter 2 about Jesus healing the paralytic man has forevermore changed how I visualize that passage. The praise and worship music though was mediocre...good musicians but with lyrics lacking substance (think Michael W. Smith style). Now that the banquet is over, the mission will be busy until the end of the year with food and turkey drives, a coat drive, a radio-thon, the Giving Tree, Christmas gift drives, and last but not least, the annual Great Thanksgiving Banquet. I scheduled our first GTB planning meeting for Monday, and I hope I can generate some enthusiasm before then. It's one of those events that cause people to take a deep breath and say, "Here we go again...whether we like it or not."

Michigan Sugar is planning to start processing sugar beets early tomorrow morning, assuming everything is in place tonight. Hopefully, all the preparatory work over the summer will allow for a smooth start-up. We shall see. Last week, the company celebrated last year's record-breaking production of over 1 billion pounds of sugar, but I think the early projections are not that high for the coming year. And even though Joel is taxed both mentally and physically during the campaign, he never tires of the chemical reactions involved, so this is an exciting time for him.