Have you done your part, today is the first day of autumn, as a new season is in front of us. I don't about you, but I am ready for the change. This summer, with it's high temperatures, drought conditions, has been a challenge. The cooler mornings, lower humidity has put a little zest in our steps and maybe the rain will come to give us some relief.
As most of you know, Friday afternoons is goof off day for me. A group of us meet at the golf course and act crazy for several hours. Since my play is pretty lame at best, my main focus is giving all the others a hard time and whining the whole afternoon about my bad play. As we were fixing to hit our first shots, I glanced back at the club house and a figure walked into the club house. I said to the others, that almost looked like Sione. A few minutes later, out comes Sione from the club house and he joined us. What a treat. He looked good. He seems to be doing fine at his new church. Being the kind of guy I am, I played the worst round of my life, so Sione could beat me and have a good afternoon! Thanks Sione for coming, we had a great time, glad you beat me!
Saturday morning we had a great gathering of folks for our breakfast. Momma T and Curtis prepared a buffet of scrambled eggs, ham, biscuits, gravy, orange slices, hash browns and good hot coffee. Just as we were finishing up, Sione surprises us again by a visit. The little we had left over, our Centenary friends packed it in boxes and we took it with us on our visits. We had big crowds at each stop, where Mr Scott worked his magic handing out his goodies. Some how, we always seem to have just enough for the last person we see.
Joey asked us to mention to some of our friends about coming to the Friendship room. When we saw the guys, and we asked, they couldn't wait for us to come back and pick them up. Joey, Ms Hat, Gus and others have started something that is becoming an important part in our outdoor friends lives. One of the guys, said, I can't wait to get there are watch the movie we started last week. It is simple things, that make the greatest impact on their lives. At some point in the afternoon, the guys had a barbeque outside the center with ribs, potatoes and all the trimmings. Hate I missed that.
Tutoring went really well this week. Some days we had more helpers than we had kids. Those days, we can sit down with each child and have one on one help, which makes for a great afternoon. You can see the Centenary students beginning to develop relationships with the children. Thursday, the Centenary students brought their friends to help out. Our new Centenary students are Mara, Jeremy, Kayla and Alissa. Ms Lisa one day, had a vocabulary quiz with the children. Asking them if they could say the words and what each word meant. Some children did better than others, but all were well behind in their grade level.
Wednesday, we had a nice visit from North Point Methodist church and it's mission leader Mark Williams. Mark is a former member of Grace and was always supportive of our ministry in Cedar Grove. He and his wife would be at our meals and they were a tremendous help at the beginning of our Kitchen Angel ministry. It was great to see him and the others he brought. He said, he is hoping to come once a month and bring more from his new church. Ms Sarah brought her youth, so we had a nice group of helpers.
Joey missed tutoring Thursday because he was in the kitchen preparing the meal of beef stroganoff and rice for our meal on. It was delicious. Momma T brought dessert and we had a good evening. Our group was smaller than usual but it was nice. We read Acts Chapter 15. We talked about the Jews complaining about the Gentiles not being acceptable because they had not been circumcised. Which brought us into a discussion about, are we accepting to all who we come in contact with. Since they look different, maybe come from another background, don't dress the way we do, do we open our arms to them? Peter told the Jews, it is not about what you do, the rules you follow, the traditions you teach but about your heart. God knows your heart and He will make the judgement.
A church emailed me about coming the end of October to help. I said ok but got to thinking about our board discussions of changing our meal time. I asked several folks and all agreed the board decided to move our Wednesday meal to Thursday evenings starting October 29. If our chapel is ready, we will have worship at 5 and then supper at 5:30. We have asked Pete Bollinger to get us started with the music. We need to have someone share a few words? Ms Sarah, said she and the youth would have a Fall Festival set up also.
We talked Thursday evening about with our change in meals, what do we do with our Thursday night Bible study. One suggestion was to move it to Tuesday or Wednesday nights. Another suggestion was to have it after our new meal time and open it up to the community. Joey said, if that gets too big we can divide up the groups. Wouldn't that be a nice problem to have. Be thinking about what you would like to do and we can talk more about it in the coming weeks.
Prayer concerns for Byron and Chuck. They have gone their separate ways and each struggling to make a new way for themselves. Challenges of life forcing them down. Thank goodness for Hat and Joey who are the one constant force in both their lives.
Prayers for Sinotra. His probation officer came and met with us about his progress. He has struggled in the past but at the moment seems to be making the right choices in his life. She is hoping he has changed his path of disobedience and moved on. Sinotra came by Wednesday and gave everybody a hug.
Krysten as she decides on a new job. She has been offered a position at First Methodist church.
Lomax and his grandmother. She is making progress in her life dealing with the loss of her husband and for Lomax as he becomes her comforter in that process.
Stress. As I see each of you in your various areas of ministry, hear your challenges, witness your triumphs and watch your struggles, I also hear and see your stress. I just want us to take a breathe. Maybe even step back for a moment. And ask, are we allowing God and His Holy Spirit to lead us in our journeys? As we continue to move forward, we are always asking questions of the unknown. Where will the money come from? Who will lead this? What is not working? How are we going to do this? I need to get this done. If I don't do it who will? Questions with no answers lead to stress if we allow it. I am the world's biggest stress producer or maybe I should say, I use to be. Our faith will handle our stress if we allow it to. We do not have to know the answers, if we know we are in God's will. I told Mr Scott Saturday, don't stress over funding for our outdoor friends. Evidently right now, God is asking us to be obedient and provide for His children. Even though we want to do it another way, that way has not happened, so we must be present in this path He has laid out for us. When it is time for a change, He will provide that change.
All of you are so special to our community, to God and us as a family. We need to enjoy God's majesty. We are here for such a short period of time, we need to enjoy God's blessings in our lives. We need to have fun. We need to enjoy each other's lives. We need to sing praises about our community.
Have a great weekend and great week. See you around the community. Amen.
As most of you know, Friday afternoons is goof off day for me. A group of us meet at the golf course and act crazy for several hours. Since my play is pretty lame at best, my main focus is giving all the others a hard time and whining the whole afternoon about my bad play. As we were fixing to hit our first shots, I glanced back at the club house and a figure walked into the club house. I said to the others, that almost looked like Sione. A few minutes later, out comes Sione from the club house and he joined us. What a treat. He looked good. He seems to be doing fine at his new church. Being the kind of guy I am, I played the worst round of my life, so Sione could beat me and have a good afternoon! Thanks Sione for coming, we had a great time, glad you beat me!
Saturday morning we had a great gathering of folks for our breakfast. Momma T and Curtis prepared a buffet of scrambled eggs, ham, biscuits, gravy, orange slices, hash browns and good hot coffee. Just as we were finishing up, Sione surprises us again by a visit. The little we had left over, our Centenary friends packed it in boxes and we took it with us on our visits. We had big crowds at each stop, where Mr Scott worked his magic handing out his goodies. Some how, we always seem to have just enough for the last person we see.
Joey asked us to mention to some of our friends about coming to the Friendship room. When we saw the guys, and we asked, they couldn't wait for us to come back and pick them up. Joey, Ms Hat, Gus and others have started something that is becoming an important part in our outdoor friends lives. One of the guys, said, I can't wait to get there are watch the movie we started last week. It is simple things, that make the greatest impact on their lives. At some point in the afternoon, the guys had a barbeque outside the center with ribs, potatoes and all the trimmings. Hate I missed that.
Tutoring went really well this week. Some days we had more helpers than we had kids. Those days, we can sit down with each child and have one on one help, which makes for a great afternoon. You can see the Centenary students beginning to develop relationships with the children. Thursday, the Centenary students brought their friends to help out. Our new Centenary students are Mara, Jeremy, Kayla and Alissa. Ms Lisa one day, had a vocabulary quiz with the children. Asking them if they could say the words and what each word meant. Some children did better than others, but all were well behind in their grade level.
Wednesday, we had a nice visit from North Point Methodist church and it's mission leader Mark Williams. Mark is a former member of Grace and was always supportive of our ministry in Cedar Grove. He and his wife would be at our meals and they were a tremendous help at the beginning of our Kitchen Angel ministry. It was great to see him and the others he brought. He said, he is hoping to come once a month and bring more from his new church. Ms Sarah brought her youth, so we had a nice group of helpers.
Joey missed tutoring Thursday because he was in the kitchen preparing the meal of beef stroganoff and rice for our meal on. It was delicious. Momma T brought dessert and we had a good evening. Our group was smaller than usual but it was nice. We read Acts Chapter 15. We talked about the Jews complaining about the Gentiles not being acceptable because they had not been circumcised. Which brought us into a discussion about, are we accepting to all who we come in contact with. Since they look different, maybe come from another background, don't dress the way we do, do we open our arms to them? Peter told the Jews, it is not about what you do, the rules you follow, the traditions you teach but about your heart. God knows your heart and He will make the judgement.
A church emailed me about coming the end of October to help. I said ok but got to thinking about our board discussions of changing our meal time. I asked several folks and all agreed the board decided to move our Wednesday meal to Thursday evenings starting October 29. If our chapel is ready, we will have worship at 5 and then supper at 5:30. We have asked Pete Bollinger to get us started with the music. We need to have someone share a few words? Ms Sarah, said she and the youth would have a Fall Festival set up also.
We talked Thursday evening about with our change in meals, what do we do with our Thursday night Bible study. One suggestion was to move it to Tuesday or Wednesday nights. Another suggestion was to have it after our new meal time and open it up to the community. Joey said, if that gets too big we can divide up the groups. Wouldn't that be a nice problem to have. Be thinking about what you would like to do and we can talk more about it in the coming weeks.
Prayer concerns for Byron and Chuck. They have gone their separate ways and each struggling to make a new way for themselves. Challenges of life forcing them down. Thank goodness for Hat and Joey who are the one constant force in both their lives.
Prayers for Sinotra. His probation officer came and met with us about his progress. He has struggled in the past but at the moment seems to be making the right choices in his life. She is hoping he has changed his path of disobedience and moved on. Sinotra came by Wednesday and gave everybody a hug.
Krysten as she decides on a new job. She has been offered a position at First Methodist church.
Lomax and his grandmother. She is making progress in her life dealing with the loss of her husband and for Lomax as he becomes her comforter in that process.
Stress. As I see each of you in your various areas of ministry, hear your challenges, witness your triumphs and watch your struggles, I also hear and see your stress. I just want us to take a breathe. Maybe even step back for a moment. And ask, are we allowing God and His Holy Spirit to lead us in our journeys? As we continue to move forward, we are always asking questions of the unknown. Where will the money come from? Who will lead this? What is not working? How are we going to do this? I need to get this done. If I don't do it who will? Questions with no answers lead to stress if we allow it. I am the world's biggest stress producer or maybe I should say, I use to be. Our faith will handle our stress if we allow it to. We do not have to know the answers, if we know we are in God's will. I told Mr Scott Saturday, don't stress over funding for our outdoor friends. Evidently right now, God is asking us to be obedient and provide for His children. Even though we want to do it another way, that way has not happened, so we must be present in this path He has laid out for us. When it is time for a change, He will provide that change.
All of you are so special to our community, to God and us as a family. We need to enjoy God's majesty. We are here for such a short period of time, we need to enjoy God's blessings in our lives. We need to have fun. We need to enjoy each other's lives. We need to sing praises about our community.
Have a great weekend and great week. See you around the community. Amen.
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