There have recently been a bunch of emails going around of people looking for doctors recommendations. John Kovacs had the great idea of posting these to a central sheet that we could all share and add to. I went ahead and put it together and started the doctors page... feel free to add more to it!

Click Here to Access the Google Sheet

***This is not a "public" sheet, and therefore cannot be found on any search engine or anything, but similar to our website, it is accessible to anyone with the specific link. Therefore, refrain from sharing personal contact information and just limit the postings to public business contact info.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year everyone!

We pray you all are having a wonderful holiday season and you are staying warm! 

First off, we want to thank The Hansons for hosting family dinner the last few months. We greatly appreciate your endless hospitality even through the holidays! Y'all have been great hosts and we've had lots of fun! And we want to give a shout out to all the previous hosts for hosting Family Dinner at their home. Family Dinner has been going strong for 5 1/2 years and it wouldn't have been possible without all of you making the commitment to host this weekly potluck where we share our lives together. Thank you all so much. 

Family Dinner has meant so much to us during such a crazy time in our growing family's lives. It has been a blessing to have something so steady and consistent along with an amazing group of people that have become our community. 

On that note, we are excited to invite everyone to our house for Family Dinner this Thursday, January 8th. 

Please come anytime after 5:30pm. We are also planning on keeping the house open after the families leave to put kids to bed for anyone who wants to stay later and hang out. Every Thursday we'll have this "Family Dinner After Hours" for anyone who wants to experience quieter conversation time. 

Our goal is to host until Lent of 2016. More than anything though, we know that we need to always be discerning what is best for our family and for the community too. So, this is a tentative estimate that we will be continually discerning. We'd like for you all to be discerning too and please let us know if your family feels called to host. 

Some things about our house:
- When the kids are outside, we'd like for there to be an adult with them ... especially if the kids are zip lining! 
(Parental supervision is advised. We hereby release all liability for any injuries incurred on the zip line from this day forward!)
- Pretty much all areas of the house with the door open will be open to everyone. We will have the baby gate on the stairs, but if you need or want to go upstairs for something, that's fine, just close the gate behind you to keep the babies from climbing the stairs. 

Lastly, we are so excited to take on this ministry and we humbly ask for your prayers. Please pray for grace and peace for our entire family. And please pray that throughout the next year our community will grow closer and stronger together, and more importantly, closer to Christ. 

Looking forward to seeing you all soon!
Peace & blessings,
Peter, Kristin, Audrey, Marie, Avila & Francis

Dear Family Dinner Community,

The short story is that Family Dinner will be moving, this week only, over to Clear Lake Park at the pavilion (see picture & pavilion location attached).


The Long Story
Ennie Hickman from Adore Ministries contacted me a few months back to see if our Family Dinner would be interested in hosting a night of the "Love Your Neighbor Backyard Tour" with Ike Ndolo & Ennie giving the message. I didn't want to commit our community to the initial cost ($3,000), and after checking with our parishes to see if there was interest, I was sad to decline. 

At the Adore worship night last week, Ennie told me that they had a date cancel on the tour and asked if we would still be willing to host a night at no cost to us if Adore would just be able to take a love offering.

On Friday, at the family meeting, we discussed the outreach function of family dinner. The 3rd goal in the Family Dinner vision we finalized is to be an easy place... a soft landing so to speak... to invite people you may know from work or meet out and about who may be searching for community. There was a suggestion that maybe we do a larger event at a park every now and then so that it would be even easier than inviting people over to someones house they don't know. I immediately thought of Ennie's request.

The "Love Your Neighbor Backyard Tour" idea is essentially to go to neighborhoods and provide a platform for people to invite their neighbors to a family dinner type event... or essentially the perfect fit for a first time Clear Lake Family Dinner bash at the park! Its family dinner with some live music and a 5min, kid friendly message! 

You can find out more about the tour at:www.LoveYourNeighborTour.comand more about Adore at:www.adoreministries.com

The Details

• Same time as normal family dinner (5:30-9pm | come & go as you please)
  
• completely pot-luck like normal (bring an entre or side large enough to feed at least your family)
• Adore Ministries will bring sausage and grill it to supplement

Josh and I talked about this all today and we are really excited about seeing you all at the park! Feel free to invite anyone you know that you've been afraid to invite so far... :)

Blessings,

Peter Fontana

Dear Family Dinner Community,

We are writing to invite you to join others in this Clear Lake Family Dinner community for an adults only meeting. Like we did last year, we’ve felt a need to discern, discuss, and pray about taking additional steps towards growth, formation, and outreach.

In particular we would like to share a new FD website, articulate a mission statement, and hear from some about potential areas for deepening our faith and connecting with one another on a deeper level. Certainly our Thursday night gatherings (currently graciously hosted by the Hanson's) are a hallmark activity and have blessed us with the ability to meet new people and reconnect with others. Our lives have also been enriched with these relationships which we see in our families’ sacraments of baptism & marriage, in King’s Men meetings, supporting each other in times of need, and with the women’s monthly book study, to name a few.

The Fontana’s and Perryman’s invite you to join us the evening of September 5th at the Perryman house. We’ll plan to start the discussion at 7:30, but please feel welcome to come as early at 7:00. For those of you who might need to make sitter arrangements, we expect to be done by 10:00 (at the latest). As they typically do, the Perryman’s may provide wine, cheese, and dessert. Feel free to contact them if you wish to help.

(to make it easier to add to your calendar, you should be able to click below) 
Next Friday; September 5th @ 7pm-10pm

If you would like to come, but cannot make it on this night, please email Kristin ([email protected]) directly to let her know and share any thoughts or discussion points you are keen on. If there is a large contingent of people who cannot make it, we might move it to a different night.


Look forward to seeing you there. God bless you & your family!

~ Kristin & Peter