100 YEARS

 

Hello, friends.  Sorry I've been MIA lately.  And thank you to those who reached out to me wondering where I was.  I really appreciate that.  

We have been having wonderful weather here.  Sunny and up in the high 70*F.  Almost summer.  It has been nice to run out without my coat in November.  Unfortunately, this wonderful weather broke this morning.  It is in the 40s now.  Cold!  The weather report on TV said to go find my jacket.

I have been not posting lately because I (and a lot of other people in my church) have been busy with the 100th Anniversary of the church I attend.  Of course the denomination is much older, but the date on our cornerstone is 1922.  We celebrated this past Sunday and have spent an entire year planning it.  But of course as time got shorter, things got more hectic.  The walls of the sanctuary were repaired and painted.  New lights were installed in the sanctuary and Fellowship Hall.  A caterer was hired.  Information letters and invitations sent out.  And the ladies cleaned the entire church.  Everything from washing the windowsills to cleaning the carpets and shampooing the upholstery on the chairs.  Everything was sparkling.  Because of my legs I didn't do as much as others, but we were all busy.

The result, though, was wonderful.  We had visitors from about 10 other congregations in our denomination including the former pastor of our mother church.  This congregation was in another part of the city, but saw a need in our neighborhood and sent people to start a work there.  And here we are 100 years later.

There were three pastors who gave a message each.  We had the daughter of the man who was our pastor back in the 1940s come to visit along with some of her friends who accepted Christ as their savior in our church.  We had lots of people who used to attend come back to celebrate.  So many people so happy for us.

After the service we went to the hall to have a catered luncheon.  The food was wonderful!  There was beef with mushrooms in a delicious sauce.  There was chicken breast with roasted vegetables.  There was also a vegetarian option which I took.  Grilled asparagus, roasted eggplant with garlic, yellow squash, zucchini, carrots...  Yum.  I'm sorry I didn't get a picture of it.  I thought of it after I had eaten.  Oh well.  There was also a salad bar and an area with rolls and butter.  Iced tea.  Hot tea.  Hot coffee.  And four bottles of soda.  For dessert there were two chocolate chip cakes from our local bakery.  So good.  They also gave us three German Apple cakes for free.

Of course you want to see pictures.  Yes?  Well here they are.  Prepare for picture overload.

Here are some pictures of the people who attended.

I got a picture of Joe walking down the aisle.

I got some more pictures of the congregation.  It was good to see so many there.

Krystal saw me taking pictures and struck a pose.

There was plenty of food for everyone.

And here are the cakes.

I record the message every Sunday.  Because this was a special Sunday, I wanted to get the entire thing.  I got a new SD card for my camera so I would have plenty of room.  Then I fully charged two batteries.  But...  My charger must be dying.  Although they read as fully charged, they weren't.  Each lasted about 18 minutes and died.  I kept running into the library where I had the charger plugged in and switching the batteries.  What a mess!

So the video is all chopped up into small parts.  And I ended up leaving parts out like the singing.  I was so disappointed.  There were also people sitting next to me who were talking, phones going off, people walking in front of the camera, etc.  In spite of it all, I got a fairly decent video.  I am going to edit it today and hopefully get it up tomorrow.  It is going to be a big editing job.  I have to put all these little parts together and take out parts where people are talking and you can't hear the speaker.  I figure it will take me at least three hours to do it.  But that's OK.  I figure that it will still turn out decent.

That's it for right now.  I have to get myself ready for teaching Bible Study this morning.  Then we have to go vote and have to go food shopping.  Another busy day.

See you all soon.

Kathy