Welcome Samantha Kate and Phoenix Marlene!

Heartland's nursery got a little bigger with the births of Samantha Kate and Phoenix Marlene.

Moms and babies are doing fine.

Congratulations!

Update On Jadon Potter

Some good news about Jadon Potter today.

Jadon will be released from the hospital soon. Here is the article from the Chilliwack Bruins site:

November 22, 2008

After being injured in Friday's game vs the Tri City Americans, Bruins Captain Jadon Potter was taken to Chilliwack hospital where he was given a series of tests including a CT scan. He was moved to Vancouver General Hospital at 1am. Some damage to the vertebrae in his neck was discovered. As a result, he has been fitted with a neck brace which he will be wearing for approximately 6-8 weeks. No damage to his spinal cord was discovered and no surgery was required.

He is expected to make a full recovery.

Jadon has been released from the hospital and will be returning to Chilliwack this evening.

The Chilliwack Bruins on behalf of Jadon Potter and his family would like to thank everyone for their concern and their support.

Continue to pray for his full recovery.

Pray for Jadon Potter

During last night's Bruins game, Jadon went headfirst into the boards. Here is a write up from The Province.

In the second period of last night's Chilliwack Bruins/Tri-City Americans game at Prospera Centre, Bruins' centre Jadon Potter slammed head first into the boards behind his own goal, racing back to defend what turned out to be a short-handed goal.

There's nothing official from the team at this point but assistant coach Dan Price did say "the current information from the medical staff is positive and the prognosis is good. He's expected to make a full recovery."

No one on the team would comment further at this point, but early suggestions are that Potter could have a fractured vertebra that would keep him out for the rest of the season, but again, nothing is confirmed. The Bruins expect to have more information tonight or tomorrow morning.

Potter was taken by ambulance to Chilliwack General and after X-rays there, moved to VGH by ambulance around 1 a.m.

Teammate Matt Meropoulis, who was on the ice at the time of the incident, said the team was really shaken last night, but their spirits were lifted after talking to Potter post-game and again today.

"In the room it was just dead silence," Meropoulis said of the time the teams were sent back to their rooms while Potter was attended to. "It was beyond the game.

"I spoke with him today and he's actually in great sprits. He's a tough guy to get down."

Potter's mom flew into Vancouver this morning. Potter is Chilliwack's leading scorer, with seven goals and 22 points in 26 games. Chilliwack lost 2-0 to Tri-City.

At the time of Potter's injury, the ambulance crew was already responding to a woman in the stands who was having a seizure. The crew split up and both the fan and Potter were transported to Chilliwack General together.

update: another article in the chilliwack progress by eric welsh (here).

podcast

We re-designed our website awhile back and one feature that people were asking for is to create a podcast of the messages. They wanted something that they could subscribe to from iTunes or listen to from the site.

Before I came to Heartland they had a tape ministry. Raise your hand if you still have cassettes kicking around the house. Recording on tapes was a bit easier, I think, than onto a digital file. The tape player has LEDs that flash with the audio levels telling you if things are recording. But since we went to digital, the recordings have been about a 70% success. Which in baseball is a pretty good batting average - but this ain't ball. Lately we have been using garage band, then import into iweb, then publishing into a folder, then uploading with dreamweaver. That's alot of steps and alot of programs. Then there are issues with garage band. The levels are different from week to week, file size and compression - anybody know about this etc.

Anyways, there are now podcasts on the site and you can subscribe through iTunes. So, if your working in children's ministry and want to catch what happened when you were with the kids, you can subscribe to the podcast.

Adopt A Player Program

When the Bruins came to town, we at Heartland began to ask the question how can we support the team and players.

One idea that came was the idea of having people from Heartland regularly pray for the players. We wanted to pray for each player for safety with all their travel, safety during the games and we also wanted to pray for God's blessing on their lives.

So, we created the adopt a player program where a family from Heartland would "adopt" a player and pray for that player every day.

We didn't know how if it would work, or if people would want to adopt a player, not to pray for them, but as a fan with the hopes of meeting them or getting their autograph etc. But we found that Heartland people have been more than willing to just pray. Just serve.

For the past three seasons we have been doing this and it has been a way for us to serve and help where we can.

It's amazing how many ways there are to serve other people. It just takes some time to think of them, risk and try them and learn along the way. This reverses the mindset that church is only to be blessed. Instead church is a place to receive a blessing to pass on a blessing. Without the passing on the blessing part, the church borders on narcissism.

We are still learning how to do this at Heartland

last and this week

the weekend that was: entered the weekend running on fumes. not much in the tank with time or energy. i sat in meetings/training for about 26 hours last week and entered the weekend with the message about 10% done. take out 3 work days with the same volume of work needed to be done and you have a very anxious mike. needless to say, saturday night was frantic.

on my to-do list this week: working on the curb appeal series still, lots to study and figure out for this sunday yet. i have a backlog of emails I haven't looked at or responded to. my new laptop arrived (15" mac book pro) and i have apps to install and get everything working on it that is important to my work style. currently the usb drivers for my blackberry pearl are not working and no one on the discussion forums have answers. i have 5 book shelves being delivered this afternoon. pull out the screw driver and hammer and put them up. maybe levi can help me. dan is lending me his compactor, so maybe on friday i can compact the crusher gravel in the backyard in prep for paving stones.

procrastinating about: organizing the office, figuring out how filing will work in the new space, updating the church's web site.

books i’m in the midst of: humility, andy murray (still), i picked up a book off the shelf again that i bought about 5 years ago called "emergence: the connected lives of ants, brains, cities and software." its not about church ministry (although the name may suggest it is) its about science and making associations - it reads like an engineering text book. i just started archibald hart's new book, "thrilled to death." absolutely fascinating - again, archibald is helping me make sense of my complicated inner world.

down the road: got some stuff cooking with the bruins that i'm really excited about. we are carving out a concept called, "faith night" where one game has the theme of faith. our goal is to sell out and get the message of faith out to the 5K plus fans in the building.

music that seemed to catch my attention this past week: nazareth greatest hits (remember "turn on your receiver" - i'm in this kick of reconnecting with my high school music preferences, david crowder band

how i’m feeling about this week: relieved last week is in the books, but this week is slipping away fast, so peaceful and anticipitory (is that an emotion?)