The Zook Family

Aarick: Rej keeps taking my cars!

Me: Remember, you can only keep two cars, one for each hand. You can play with more than two on the car blanket, but I’m not going to make Rej bring back any cars that you can’t hold in your hands.

Aarick: But I want three cars. This one is my racing car, and this is my work car, and then I want the four-wheeler, too.

Me: Well, I guess you’ll just have to grow another hand.

Pause.

Aarick: [smiles] Growing another hand sounds like a pretty good idea.

If you’re like me, you hate targeted advertising. I wanted to disable the Facebook ads entirely but couldn’t do that. This gets rid of the ad photos, at least.

• Add 127.0.0.1 ads.ak.facebook.com on a new line of your \windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts file.

If your firewall has content filtering options, you can add ads.ak.facebook.com to its URL deny list. Mozilla Firefox has plugins to block content as well, but this works for any browser.

This past Tuesday the trustees closed the purchase of the property on Baldwin Street. We are now the owners of a building in Meadville! We’ve found it very exciting to explore the possibilities in a larger building. Currently we have room for about 70 in the main room, with classrooms in the three smaller rooms. The trustees asked Geryll Zehr to serve as an overseer of the trailer park, and he met this week with the tenants. He plans to finalize and sign lease agreements with them this coming week. The building purchase is sobering as well as exciting. We face a large debt that we hope to repay in 20 years, although we could hope to repay it in much less time! If God lays this need on your heart, we would welcome any contributions toward the purchase. We also face new responsibilities of caring for the grounds and the building.

In June our congregation affirmed John and Barb Coblentz, with their children Jean, Josh, Andi, and Ted, to serve at Faith Builders in leading the Campus Fellowship there. Jean and Josh will begin the Ministry Apprenticing Program tomorrow. Remember their family in prayer this year! While we miss them at MMC, we’re also excited that they can bless the young people studying at Faith Builders.

Following their graduation from Faith Builders in May, two sons of the church have headed for fields of ministry elsewhere. Chad Weaver is serving in York, Pennsylvania, as principal of a Christian day school in the city. Kyle Lehman moved to Chambersburg, PA, to teach in his dad’s old school, Anchor Christian.

Someone went for a ride this morning.

Wasn’t me.

I’ve come to realize I’m better at some repair jobs than others.

Yes:

No:

“He attacked everything in life with a mix of extraordinary genius and naive incompetence, and it was often difficult to tell which was which.” - Douglas Adams

“If there are no stupid questions, then what kind of questions do stupid people ask? Do they get smart just in time to ask questions?” – Scott Adams

Are you going somewhere? Or why are you kissing Mommy?

Icecube! Stwaight ahead!

Mama, tell me the one about the cro—the ouchie cross.

Mom, do you feel like you don’t have anything to do?

My clothes are da mountains. I shut my knees so they don’t go pophole.

Regan, I always wanted you for my baby brudder.

There was someping under my bed. In my sleep I heard a noise and I sot dere was someping under my bed. I didn’t turn my head because I was too sacred. I heard a boice under my bed.

Tom taked dem one step at a time.

What do boogers eat?

What is a ghost?

When I grow up to be a big daddy, will you still be my mom?

When we die, we go to heaven to bisit God. And God’s Son. Named Jesus. Christ.

Who is God?

Why are school buses yellow?

Why are we Mennonite?

Why can’t babies talk?

Why do mamas wear dresses?

You can still be my wife and live in my house. And you should be kind to my children.

It’s wonderful seeing the advent of another spring! I am so ready to be done with piles of snow and cold weather. Of course, some might ask, why did I move to this area? Well, reasons other than the weather, I’ll admit.

Three years later, spring finally came.

You should check out my page on Facebook.