A SUNDAY, A WEDDING AND AN INSTALLATION

And sooner than we think.  Can you believe summer will be over in just a few days?  I will be sad.  A summer while I've been retired has been just glorious.  I know I keep saying it, but this has been the best summer I have had in a long time.

Sunday Pastor Ralph and Carolyn officially became members of the church.  Such a happy time.  I have noticed (and several others have also) that the congregation is much happier than it has been in a long time.

It was a busy day.  After the worship service we were cleaning up, moving furniture, and preparing for the dinner that evening.  Then Joe and I ran to Shop Rite and got the cake and the fixings for the huge salad I was making.  I also got a few things we needed.  Then we hurried home.

I made the salad, grabbed a bite to eat, then jumped in the shower and got dressed for our special time. 

We got over to church just slightly after 3 p.m.  There were quite a few people already there including our former pastor who was there not only for Pastor Ralph's installation service, but to perform our wedding renewal service.  We haven't seen Pastor Wayne or his wife Phyllis in five years.  There were smiles and hugs all around.

We had invited several people from the church and all the elders and their wives to the service.  There were also some pastors from the denomination and their wives there so about 20 people witnessed us taking our vows.

It was so beautiful and meant so much to us to have the pastor who originally married us perform this ceremony too.  I just kept smiling and so did Joe.  Carolyn took pictures and when she gets her computer up and running this week she will email them to me and I will share them with you.  I think we meant the vows more after having experienced ten years of marriage than we did on our wedding day.  You can't go through a decade of living together and sharing your life with someone without it changing you.

On our wedding day Pastor Wayne pronounced us husband and wife and told us to walk down the aisle.  He completely forgot to let us kiss!  I kidded him for years about the marriage not being valid.  Last night he told everyone there that last time he married us and went on with his day without giving a thought to having us kiss.  He looked at me and said some people questioned the validity of the marriage.  Whoops!  So this time he wasn't going to make the same mistake.  He turned to Joe and said, "Joe, you may finally kiss your bride."  Everyone laughed and applauded.  Carolyn got a shot of the kiss so there is no mistake that it happened this time.

After all of that we got set up for Pastor Ralph's Installation Service.  I stood by the door, greeted people, and handed out the programs.  I was surprised at how many people Joe knew from all the various churches.  He had met them at the annual conference in April.  We had a packed house which I was glad about.

It was a great service.  The only problem I had was that while taping it my camera's battery ran out (twice) and I ran out of room on my SD card.  So I did the best I could and I think it turned out pretty good.  I was going to just take photos which would have been OK, but I was asked by a few people who couldn't make it if I could put it on video so they could see it.

Here is Pastor Wayne giving some closing remarks and the closing prayer.  It's so nice that he and Pastor Ralph are friends and have been for many years.

There was a dinner afterwards.  Some people brought food for it, but most of it was provided by the church and the wonderful cooking of Dorothea.  She is a terrific cook and everything she makes is so delicious.  There was the salad I made, coleslaw, roast pork, roast chicken, potatoes and carrots, and bread I brought back from Lancaster.  For dessert there was a fruit salad and the cake I bought.

Here is our elder, Bob, telling them to cut the cake so we can eat it.

 Everything turned out great.  It has been a wonderful weekend.  Now it's back to real life.  But with a lot of rest, relaxation, fun and happiness.

Kathy