Another great visit

We are so thankful for the succession of visits we have had lately with our "kids" from Alaska. Marla and Jim were the latest to spend a week with us. we went to the beach where we had fabulous weather. Sunny, warm and very little wind. October at the beach can be fabulous. We stayed at Manzanita and rented a house right on the golf course there. Jim got in quite a few rounds of gold, we walked the beach, shopped and strolled beaches in Cannon Beach, Seaside and visited other beautiful spots. And of course we ate. It was fabulous

Marla and her gift of love to us!

Marla knitted Christmas stockings for our Christmas gift this year. I won't be able to mock complain about my christmas stocking being too small now. Notice our favorite hymn titles are on each stocking. A special gift from a lovely, godly daughter.

Boys day Out

I had an especially enjoyable weekend. Mark, Matt and I drove to Seattle and Merlin drove down from Canada and we met at Husky Stadium. We watched Oregon State beat the UofW. It was a beautiful fall day and we had a great few hours together. What a joy to see how all of our children have matured into such great people with great values and lives dedicated to serve Christ. We had a great visit with Marty and Nikki from Alaska recently and Marla and Jim are coming tomorrow for a week

We were really encouraged as we went to Good Shepherd Church this morning and hear the author of a book I read recently. Danesh D'Souza wrote What's so Great About Christianity. What a brilliant guy with a keen insight on what is really happening in our world today.
We sat with Ryan and Michelle. Our grandson and wife of whom we are very proud. He is a youth pastor of that church.
After that we went to our church where our pastor Barry Arnold preached a very good sermon on Esther. I encourage you to listen to Dinesh's sermon on the Good Shepherd Community Church home page. Google it!

Correct Tartan

Possibly you noticed that Greg caught my error in identifying his cousins kilts by saying they were wearing the Moffat pattern. Big mistake. It was a brain-eye coordination kind of thing.
The eye thing will possibly be taken care of by a cataract operation the end of this month. My wife Carol and friend Gale have both had the operation and say colors become clearer and brighter after the exchange of lens.

The brain thing is a different matter. Carol remended me that Merlin and Brenda who bought them for their boys could not find them in Moffat colors. I forgot. Therefore "we hope for better things" in the future.

Sperio Meloria

"Sperio Meloria" is old Scottish for "We hope for Better things". It is the Motto of the Moffat Clan.

Yes our clan is official and even has it's own tartan. Tyson and Warren last Christmas got Tartan Kilts made from the Moffat Tartan. They look good or make our pretty plain tartan look good.

I have done some research on our clan and found like most Scottish clans obvious have spiritual roots. Our motto of "We hope for Better Things" has spiritual connotations of expecting God to bring us out of oppresive and hopeless situations. Our clans history is full of much persecution, both spiritual and actual.

As our American society seems to be in a freefall away from our country's spiritual roots it is time for us to " look up for our redemption draweth nigh." He is our only hope.

Marty and Nikki Visit

We had a great time these last few days as Marty and Nikki spent the first days of their vacation visiting with us. We had some great family times as we were in the homes of all the Moffat clan that are in this area. (There's over twenty of us here ).

We celebrated Matt and Marty's birthdays Friday evening. Mark and Shari joined Matt's family as we did the cake thing and had dinner. Although it was rainy we also decided to go to a Greek festival on Saturday. This is a money raiser for the Greek Orthodox church here. It is an annual event of immense popularity. People jammed in like sardines buying and eating Greek food. We all really laughed when we read the sign below. It took a little adjustment for us to really understand what the sign says. Wonder if they had that kind of sign up at the wedding of Cana?

The Greek desert we shared was delicious and worth the entire trip itself.

We also spent some time in their beautiful church, learning a bit about the Greek Orthodox Church. A beautiful building. I did not get a good picture.