A Photo Contest?

An idea has surfaced in recent weeks about having a Photo Contest to help raise much needed funds for New Leaf Ministries. This would be an amateur photo contest that people would send in their entries, either by snail mail or electronic format, along with a small fee to participate. The thought here is to make the deadline December 31st for all entries and make the announcement on or before January 15th, 2009.

It has been suggested that we do a winter theme and have a few categories for honorable mentions. The prize money has been suggested at $100 for first place $50 for second and $10 for honorable mentions. Your input would be very beneficial at this point, so you if you would like to drop an email to jmhurst@kinzua.net to let me know what you think, I'd greatly appreciate it.

God bless you all this day.

Mark

A Recent Change of Events

Postponing the New Beginnings Divorce Recovery Workshop has been kind of a set back for us. We had high anticipation that there would be a good response. We know there are lots of hurting people in our community who would benefit from such a workshop, so we are anticipating good things believing the timing was right. Unfortunately, things didn't seem to be right for this past weekend. There were a lot of details to work out and whether it was the length of time it took to work out those details or the lack of early advertising or just bad timing, we're not sure, but it became evident at the tail end of things that we needed to postpone the event and regroup.

The blessing of this is that all of the leg-work is done. We need to set a new date (probably this spring in April) and begin advertising early. Maybe this time we will be able to meet our goals and get things off the ground for an exciting program to help people struggling with this difficult time in their lives.

Blessings to all of you as we look forward to the coming holiday season.

Mark Hurst

The "Cobwebby" Blog

I was informed recently that my blog had gotten a little "cobwebby". Though I certainly am apologetic about the fact I haven't entered a blog here lately, I am thrilled it is being read. Some of lack of motivation for keeping the blog up to date was the feeling that no one was reading it, since I received very little feedback from the blog itself. We will endeavor to change that.

A special thank-you to all who take the time to read about our ministry and keep us in your prayers. We have had tremendous blessings over the past few months and continue to believe that God will use these things for His glory.

Praise God!

J. Mark Hurst