Don was joyfully grateful for the response to the first Center for Biblical Spirituality National Conference at the end of October. This was a huge new undertaking for the CFBS, and the responses by the participants were very encouraging.

Don recently preached at the Building Bridges Conference sponsored by Lifeway, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, and Founders Ministries. A few of the many reports available are at here and here. You can download or listen to the papers, sermons and panel discussion here.

He's still learning the ropes of his new (this fall) position of Senior Associate Dean for the School of Theology at Southern Seminary. The steepest part of the learning curve will come immediately after the first of the year as he attempts to coordinate the academic schedule for the School of Theology for the 2008-2009 academic year.

Also in January he will teach the first seminar in a new Doctor of Ministry in Biblical Spirituality program at Southern (the first of its kind in the SBC seminaries). Potential students for this new degree program should contact Adam Greenway at agreenway@sbts.edu with inquiries. Don is excited to have his long-time friend, Michael Haykin of Canada, to join him in teaching Biblical Spirituality (and Church History) at Southern. Dr. Haykin has taught adjunctively at Southern for several years while working full-time in Toronto, but now is part of the permanent SBTS faculty.

Caffy just finished teaching her annual class on "Discipleship" to a group of women in the Student Wives Institute at Southern. She's also been enjoying an Art History class which she's been teaching every other week at Dorothy Sayers Classical School in Louisville. Her final big commitment for the year has been preparing to sing on two consecutive Sunday nights in a Christmas cantata with the combined choirs of our local church and a sister congregation.

We have watched Laurelen grow in grace since her baptism this summer. She is in the midst of "recital season" at the present. The piano recital is done, but the voice recital is still ahead of us, as is the one for a group of little girls that Laurelen and her friend Hannah instruct in voice and piano. She's also singing in the cantata with Caffy.

Farm & Garden Report

Caffy has put the garden to rest, and now it's thick and high with a beautiful green spread of buckwheat as a cover crop. The big news, however, is with the apiary. Normally you have to let the bees keep all the honey during the first winter of a hive. But there was such a good "fall flow" (a beekeeper's term) this year that Caffy unexpectedly was able to harvest three gallons of honey from her three hives (eventually combined into two). And it was delicious! The taste makes us speculate that the bees did much of their work in a nearby vineyard rather than simply gathering from random goldenrod in the area.

The other major outdoor news makes us blue—as in blueberries. Don did a bit of research and determined to buy some three-year-old bushes from a blueberry nursery two hours' south of us. He drove down near Edmonton, KY to Bluegrass Blueberries and stood in the rain to learn some of the ins and outs of growing blueberries. So now we have three Blue Crop and three Jersey bushes, along with three smaller ones we planted last year. We are told that, if things go well, we should be able to harvest two or three pints per plant as early as next August. If that happens, you can expect to hear about it here. The biggest problem has been trying to keep Arwen (the half-Lab, half-Australian Shepherd we got last year) out of them.

Among the most pressing prayer needs at present are (1) grace for Don to persevere and complete his long-term writing project; (2) the Lord's help for Don in fulfilling his new responsibilities at the seminary; and (3) the Lord's blessing upon the National Conference in April.