Flooding

It’s happening in the Peoria area, and in numerous other locations. Flooding…in some places, like it’s never been seen before.

The Illinois River is expected to reach a record high level early next week. A lot of people are working hard right now to help other people fortify their property or move things out. Unfortunately some houses have already succumbed to the rising water and it’s a scene that will likely be repeated in the days to come.

So please pray for the folks who have already been impacted by the flood waters, and those who will be in the coming days. Thank you.

Here are some additional photos of the flooding, and a look at people helping out: https://plus.google.com/photos/101729312384817223174/albums/5868983463450353057

Peoria Morning

A Positively Good Idea

A Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/PositivelyPeoria (as well as a corresponding Twitter feed and a blog) recently popped up, called Positively Peoria. From the page’s description:

Positively Peoria spotlights people who provide excellent service in the Peoria, IL area. We do not focus on the business in general but rather, the employees of the business that provide good service and help their employers add to the value of their company. With less expendable income, we would all like to have great service when we go out or require a service. And let’s face it, there are way too many service people that we encounter in the area who just show up at their J.O.B. with little regard for providing excellent service

Using Positively Peoria is easy. When you experience excellent service from someone in a store or a restaurant or a service in your home, take note of the person’s name that helped you. Let us know about the excellent service here or via facebook or via twitter noting the company, the person (most importantly) and your story. In turn, our staff will contact the business and report the excellent service to the manager or owner. Our goal is to spotlight those individuals that provide excellent service in our area and with that, become a reliable reference for excellent service in the Peoria area.

This is great. It’s so nice to see something focused on a positive instead of a negative, especially when it comes to the topic of customer service. Sharing this today in case anyone out there wants to start something similar in your community, if it doesn’t already exist.

Have a good day.

Remembering Dax – Two Years Later

I am really looking forward to taking my kids to see this in a couple of weeks: http://wcicfm.org/dax-locke-movie-preview

It’s a movie based on the true and incredible story of Dax Locke and his family. The special screening of the movie will be shown at the Rave Cinema in Peoria later this month but those of you who have access to the gmc (formerly known as Gospel Music Channel) will be able to watch it wherever you are on Sunday, December 4th.

From the WCIC website description:

All proceeds from the event will benefit the “Cherish Every Moment Dax Locke Foundation” in its mission to raise $1.7 million to fund the operation of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis for one day.

If you aren’t familiar with Dax’s story, here is the blog post I wrote last November:

https://positivelysecond.wordpress.com/2010/11/20/decorating-for-dax/

Neither I nor my kids knew Dax personally but his name has come up more times in conversation than I can count.

Two years ago, when Dax was in his final days, we decorated our tree early as a sign of support. His parents said he loved seeing Christmas lights and he wasn’t expected to make it to Christmas Day that year.

We put up the tree early once again last year and this year our tree has been decorated and lit up before Thanksgiving for the third straight time. I hope we’ll keep doing it this way every year.

Decorating the tree is one of my favorite activities. I always loved spending that day with my family growing up and making the tree look special. Lots of great memories from those days when we were all together in our living room.

Carson and Logan love putting up our tree and decorating it too. It’s just a little tree and truth be told, I never intended for it to be ‘our tree’ forever but after we decorated it for Dax a couple of years ago, I think it’s here to stay.

So, we enjoyed putting up the ornaments together this past weekend. We had the Christmas carols playing on the stereo and strung up some lights on the front window as well. It was a great afternoon.

We stopped to pray before getting started and as we remembered Dax in our prayers, my little Logan started crying.

Dax, your story is still impacting people today. As I told Logan, I believe that you’re happy and healthy up there in Heaven and getting ready to enjoy your beloved Christmas with lots of lights and lots of smiles.

God, thank you for allowing this little boy’s story to be seen and heard by so many people and for the continued positive impact it is having both near and far…and to the Locke family, thank you once again for reminding me and all of us about the importance of cherishing every moment.