Hello! I hope all of you are doing well. It has been about two months since I’ve sent one of these things out… so I thought I should get cracking on a new update.
We had a bit of a break-through moment with Emily on Good Friday. She basically got potty-trained in a day. She had not shown any signs of even wanting to learn until that day… and then when it came, it came all at once… so it was pretty shocking to us. I won’t go into details, because they tend not to be pretty… but since then… we have gotten her completely out of diapers, she goes on the ‘big potty’, and she goes all by herself most of the time. She is quite proud of herself. She even flushes the toilet… in fact, she gets mad if you attempt to do it for her.
She is growing so fast… I just measured her yesterday… she is 38 inches tall… which, again, was surprising to me. Last time she was measured, she was in the mid-twenties. She’s grown so much recently! We want to take her to Disneyworld, probably in two years or so, and she needs to be 48 inches to ride everything… as it stands right now, she can ride everything but about ten rides! It will be fun taking her.
I honestly didn’t work with her on this too much… but she recognizes and even likes Star Wars. She likes to watch The Phantom Menace… and I had a box of about twenty loose toys that she loves to play with! She especially loves the princesses. Leia and Padme are her favorites!
Melissa is doing well. She went to South Dakota over spring break with Emily, I think she was happy for the week without her school children. We are hoping that she will only have to work, at most, one more full school year. We are hoping that, by then, our family will be a little bit bigger… no announcements yet… just dreaming and planning and trusting in God’s plan for our lives!
Melissa has been doing a lot of tutoring on the side lately, just to make some extra money. She is going to try to teach summer school during the summer… summer school here is nice… only four weeks… half days…and only three or four days of the week. So, we’ll make it work. I’m thankful for her hard work… she continues to blow me away with how great she is with Emily and how supportive she is to me. She is an amazing woman!
Ministry continues to evolve here. I don’t always know what I’ll be working on from month to month. For awhile, I thought I might have to take over the youth ministry next fall… but it’s looking more and more like that will not happen. Which is fine with me either way. Our Sunday attendance is starting to turn around. After averaging about 150 through most of the year… the past two months we have averaged in the 170’s… and last week we had 194! Which was shocking because we didn’t have anything out of the ordinary happening… not even a baby dedication!
I recently started teaching a Sunday School class on the gospel of John and it has been a wonderful experience for me. God seems to be using it as a reaffirmation of my calling… placing another passion for a specific ministry in my life and allowing me to have a little success at doing it. It has been a lot of fun!
Who knows what I’ll be in charge of a year, or even a month, from now… I just know that I am enjoying ministry. I enjoy many of the people here. I enjoy learning and growing and being challenged by God to become a more effective minister. I have enjoyed seeing God’s hand of blessing on this congregation. All I can do is pray that He will continue to bless as I continue to try and make the right decisions and do the right things!
On a whole other topic: Some of you might be wondering… Has Josh been to a Cardinal game yet this year? Nope. I’ve been to TWO of them. Haha! I never would have predicted that three years ago. It used to be good for me just to get to one game a year! I was talking with my Dad last week when he was here… last year, he was able to attend five games… and that is the most he’s been to in a year. I’m hoping to help him break that record this year… we’ll see.
Anyway, I would love to hear from any of you! I hope you are doing well!
Your friends,
Josh, Melissa, and Emily Howard (Sherlock is still alive too!)
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