One fine Sunday

I always get up early on Sundays. I like to get a bite to eat and then get down to church to check on the heat and go over my sermon in the quiet of the day. This morning I received a phone call from Joan. It was the kind of call I'll take every day. This young lady called to say that she had given birth to a healthy baby boy on Friday afternoon. So I made plans to stop in and see the mom and babe before coming back to church.

I get a lot of calls at church. The ones that I am never ready for are the calls that announce someone has gone to the hospital or that a person has passed away. On Saturday morning I received one of those calls. A good friend of mine in the community had been taken to the ER by ambulance and I was asked to meet the family there. I went to the hospital and met my friend and his the family and friends. I prayed with them and stayed for a while waiting for the doctor to come in and give a report. Thankfully I can tell you that everything turned out alright and he is hoping to go home tomorrow.

Back to today: I returned to church in time for Sunday School and taught the adult class as a sub for Curt Brockway. The class is studying the book of Revelation and we talked about the mark of the beast in Chapter 14.

Worship today was fun as our Praise team played and we sang a couple of our favorite hymns. The message was the third in a series from the book of Ezra. Today I reminded people that we all have a gift or an ability to share in the ministry.

At 12:30 p.m. we met at St. Mark's Evangelical Lutheran Church to set up for the Interfaith Luncheon. Cynthia Strouse and Nancy Allen cooked up a pork chop and rice recipe and added mixed vegetables and applesauce to complete the meal. Kyle Mineau and Amanda Duntz set up the tables and got everything set to go and then Judy Vickers and Muriel Roderick came by serve the meal. When the people began to arrive we were ready for them and they really enjoyed the meal.








I had to do double duty for a while today because I wanted to get over to the Norwich Ice Rink to check out our youth group meeting. Fred Green is our new Youth Group adviser and this was his first non basketball assignment. We joined up with Central Baptist and First Congregational Church to host the event. Unfortunately the turnout was not to great. Several of our regulars had other commitments. But those who went, like Heather Adams pictured to the left, had a good time.

Fred and I are going to meet on Monday to plan the next few events. I can't wait. By the way, our basketball teams continue t play and are doing well. The teams all have nicknames now. The Wild Cats are 5-0. The Ballers are 3 -1. The Young Bucks are 4-1 The Heat are 2-3. Check out the web site for this week's schedule of games.

After going back to serve at the Interfaith Luncheon, Kyle and I went back to church. Kyle volunteered to clean up the flower room and repaint the walls. So we bought some paint and I let him go to work.

At 6:00 p.m. I returned to finish up the day with our Spanish class. Cheryl drilled us on days of the week, months and numbers while we played a game that helped us learn them.

The Patriots beat the Chargers this afternoon and the Giants were leading the Packers. I've got my eye on those games because in two weeks we will be watching them at our church sponsored Superbowl party. Well good night. I'll write more in the morning.