The Jordan City Council voted earlier this month to exchange with St. Paul's Evangelical Lutheran Church the right to build a parking lot on the West Street right-of-way for permission for the city of Jordan to use a portion of the property as a staging area during the construction of an addition to the water treatment plant.

Jordan will excavate the parking lot site and place 9 inches of rock in the area at a cost of $10,000. The cost had been worked into the project bid for the water plant expansion.

Lately, I've been a hot shooter on the basketball court.

I have always considered myself a much better defensive player than offensive and a much better coach than a player. But I've been lighting up the scoreboard in my two weekly pickup leagues at churches in Woodbury and Maplewood, and I wasn't so bad at the Maplewood Community Center last Saturday.

Last Sunday, I scored about 25 one-pointers (we score what would normally be two-pointers as one point and three-pointers count as two), almost half of my team's points toward the end of the night.

The other day in church, song "Your Little Ones, Dear Lord" touched me. It was the writing of this hymn that makes me feel close to God. These are some of the words that had particular impressions on me:

- "Our little ones, dear Lord, are we ..." 

- "... enlighten every soul and mind, that we the way to you may find ..."

- "... kiss the ground before your feet ..."

- "Oh, draw us wholly to you, Lord, and to us all your grace accord; true faith and love to us impart, that we may hold you in our heart."

A prayer for the new year (from a service at my church):

Members of St. Paul's Evangelical Lutheran Church of Jordan have been discussing the potential expansion of the church's parking lot for a while.

I love church, and I hate missing it. But my lovely wife was sick this week, so I stayed home with her until the baseball game started.

Lifelong Belle Plaine resident Larry Bratsch fought off cancer once, but it’s back.

I think that there is something so special about 20K people coming together for one purpose. Music and Worship. God inhabits the worship of His people.

If the historic St. John the Baptist Catholic School building is endangered, it will be affirmed at 4 p.m. tomorrow.

My small-group Bible study recently finished reading through and discussing the book of Esther.