“Would you think about being an organ donor?”

Every Christmas Eve for many years, my favorite place to be is in the Haswell Methodist Church at 6:00 p.m. We missed hearing Rosemary Stoker play the hymns, but she even liked to play the piano when she lived at Prairie Pines Assisted Living Center and the Weisbrod Hospital Extended Care Unit. Now Pam Lessenden, their Lay-Leader, arranges music sung by mostly western music artists, and the congregation sings along from the hymn book with the singer. Each year, the leader selects a different family to light the Advent candles and recite the readings. Karl and Sarah Eikenberg were the honored family Saturday. It is so special when we sang “Silent Night” in the darkness holding candles. In Pam’s moving message, she reminded us that the light reminds us to be a light for Jesus. It is also gratifying to see that many family members come home on this night for services and time with families. The pews were all filled!

What is such a nice thing about Christmas is to have loved ones gather together. However, there are a number of people in our community this year who are grieving the loss of their mothers or other family members. One of my friends is filling the void by going to Branson, Missouri, with her sister and some relatives. For another lady, her father came from another state to be with her family. That must be comforting for both people. 

The Eads Senior Citizen Center hosted the December meal last week. Director Gail Voss baked four hams and dinner rolls. The officers, Loretta Siebel, Joyce Berry, and Sylvia Weeks, presented Gail with a silver-wrapped coffee mug of money, which she so worthily deserved. The center is rented out by so many groups that it takes a lot of extra work, and we do so appreciate Gail and her good service and work for our growing group. Cindy Williams read the minutes for Secretary Dana Brown. The January brunch will be at 10:00 a.m. January 6, and the monthly meeting will be January 18 at noon. After a committee meeting with Jim Collins of the La Junta office of the Area Agency on Aging, we learned that he will deliver our new kitchen appliances, plus he will teach computer lessons to 10 people at a time with an emphasis on skills and how to avoid scams. He will also bring the computers to Eads. Mr. Collins will also help us get books on living wills and legal advice.

We have had extreme coldness in Colorado, with temperatures Thursday and Friday below zero, but we still had bright sunshine.

There will be a memorial service for Yolanda “Lonnie” Heir January 6 at 11:00 a.m. at the Eads Senior Citizen Center.

Every day I think about my blessings, and thank the Lord for them and the individuals in my life. But, at the end of the year, I recognize even more how grateful I am to people like Bill and Charlotte Woelk, who bring my mail into my home from the mailbox down the street. This weekend, I am sad because the ice and snow by the box caused his wonderful black truck to get badly scratched on the door! Another blessing was from Mary Wood, Robert O. Wood’s niece, who gave me a perfect bag to carry my cell phone in. Of course there is my friend, Robin Musgrave, who is always so willing to shop for me or carry my mail into the Post Office, or buy me a cappuccino. Then, this year, there has been a mystery giver or givers. I still do not know who brought those big boxes of greeting cards or, this week, who brought the compression gloves and ornament with hot chocolate packets and candy canes. I asked many of my friends. I just don’t know who these dear people are. It is a mystery to me. Thank you from my heart for the angels too! 

Bernice Criswell Carlock called me last week from Swink. She had just read a touching article about Christmas past in Eads, and the accounts of the “Merry on Maine” event. She was so delighted. Bernice graduated in the Class of 1947. She was so disappointed to not get to come to the alumni reunion during the county fair because she had a fall just before our big event. Since she doesn’t have family in the Arkansas Valley, I suggested that she move to Eads to Prairie Pines or Weisbrod Extended Care. She has already given that some thought. Both facilities are pleasant places to be. I go to both of them Tuesday mornings, and at other times too. I am interested to see how my future home will be - unless the Lord takes me before I need to be a resident. In the meantime, I am living joyfully in Eads America! 

It is so wonderful to see how so many residents have decorated their homes in lights. We have always appreciated the Town of Eads for providing pretty Christmas motif lights on on Maine Street and, of course, the tall pine tree near the railroad crossing that is lit in twinkling lights.

The colorful business ads were remarkably pretty in the Kiowa County Press last week. As I read them, I thought of Jeanne and Chris Sorensen. “These are so artistically created.” Then I remembered Ethel Richards, the artist!. She is the mother and grandmother of these two fine editors, who work so many extra hours to research, lay out, and print the Kiowa County Press right here in Eads. Ethel would be so proud!

Happy New Year, dear readers!