January 5, 2014

Honoring Our Pastor's Achievements

January 5, 2014

Another busy Sunday has flown by.  Sometimes days are made busier because we over sleep at the start of them.  I seem to be doing a lot of that lately.  I did over sleep today.  We still managed to make it on time for Sunday School, but I am not sure how!  I had taken time to load the dishwasher and pack one box of Christmas things.  I packed another nativity set.  It had belonged to my mom's mom.

We had a room full in Sunday School.  Several Winter Texans had newly arrived in town and were with us.  Two had been in class all last winter and another had visited with them a time or two.  So it was good to have them back.  Very few of our regular attenders were absent.  In church I sat with two of my grandchildren.  Mom and my sister were also with us in the service. 

Following the service, Ron and I hurried home to have lunch and then load things for the reception for the pastor.  Our pastor was working on his doctorate when he came here to serve as our pastor, but along the way he decided to change direction on his focus so he kind of started over on the doctoral work.  We are so proud of him for sticking with it and earning his Doctorate in Ministry.  He had attended the ceremony in early December, but with the holidays it had been hard to plan a time for the reception.

This afternoon we had the reception to honor Dr. Steven Dorman.  One of the ladies had headed up the planning of the reception.  She is very creative and is good at taking care of the decorations.  I have the silver serving pieces and the glass plates and cups.  She and I joke about being able to put on a party at the drop of a hat.  We had a lot of help for this event. 

Here our pastor is with his wife and he is cutting the cake.  They are such a nice couple.  He has a heart for mission work around the world, having been to Japan, and Haiti with groups from our church recently and groups are now preparing to go to the Philippines.  His heart aches for those suffering and he is eager to go and lend his strength to meet their needs.  He works well with our state and national organizations to facilitate work in our area as well as around the world. 

It was a lot of work loading things to take and to bring home, but we had some great helpers at the church.  During the reception, I spent most of the time in the kitchen with one of the other women and we washed dishes the whole time.  I just couldn't hear in the large room, but even in the kitchen it was difficult since noise carried from the room with the reception and when I would turn on the water in the sink, the sound of it would drown out the other lady.

I was thankful for the help in the kitchen, not only that my friend was helping, but for who it was.  Her young adult son has had some serious medical problems and I wanted an update on how he is doing.  It was good to be able to have time with her to visit. 

Ron unloaded the things when we got home and I quickly put them away, expect he went to sleep before the last box was put away and it is too heavy for me to manage.  I had a nice chat with Vickey tonight .