April 12, 2015

Special Sunday Service

April 12, 2015

I just like this photo showing the perfection of God's design details in this hibiscus bloom.

Every Sunday is special, but some are more unique than others and some leave you with a mental or physical picture that you will long remember.  Today I was up early even though it was almost 3:00 a.m. before I could go to sleep after that afternoon nap the previous day. 

In our Sunday School class there was only one of the Winter Texan couple still in town and they will be leaving this week.  We had a few other visitors and it was a packed room.  There were two empty seats on the front row and that kind of fits in with how many Baptist are called "back row Baptists", not wanting to sit down front.  But for many years these same two seats have been filled by one couple in our class.  The husband is now in poor health and is rarely ever able to attend class.  It just seemed fitting that the only empty seats were theirs.  Thankfully, today they were able to be in the worship service, but we miss them in class.

Bees were all over the flowering bushes.

The worship service had a couple of added parts today.  Last week a group from our church school (which goes from per-kindergarten through high school) had gone to the Dominican Republic on a mission trip to serve as translators for a group of doctors and nurses from the East Coast.  Many of our students are fluent in Spanish and can well translate for the medical team.  The Superintendent of our church school, Terry Roberts, headed up the group again this year.  The symbolic thing that really touched me in the service was that Terry had a pair of shoes he has been using on mission trips and he said that on this last trip, he had gotten paint on them and that they are getting so old and worn, he needed to replace them.  He said he could not count the number of countries those shoes had taken him to. 

God has put our church in a unique position of having some people with special talents that the Southern Baptist International Mission Board has begun to use in disaster relief operations.  Our church has a very large number of people who speak Spanish as well as other languages.  They are being used in Spanish speaking countries in relief operations.  Terry has gone on most of these trips.  I know those shoes have taken him to Mexico, Haiti, and South America, usually following earthquakes.  He has been to the Dominican Republic several times.  Those shoes also have taken him to Japan following the tsunami, to the Philippines following a hurricane, to Africa to speak at a conference of missionaries who home school their children.  God is using him in amazing ways as He has also uses others from our church.  I was just very touched by the symbolic picture of him retiring the old shoes and showing the new ones that are ready to take him other places to help people in need and to share God's love.  Many in our church have taken disaster relief training to be ready to serve where they are needed.

Another addition to today's gathering came at the end of the service when the church recognized the church school as it is celebrating their 60th anniversary.  We were to have a ground breaking outside for the first phase of a new gymnasium and classroom building.  The basketball court will come first and then little by little, more portions of the new facility will be added as the money becomes available.  We add buildings only with the money in hand, not taking out loans for construction.  Since it had rained last night they decided not to try to have the groundbreaking ceremony outside.  The ground had actually been broken this previous week with a school ceremony.

After church, Ron and I came home and had some leftovers for lunch and then spent time working in the yard.  He trimmed a lot of trees that are just growing rapidly following all of our rains.  I think maybe the only good I did helping him was to draw mosquitoes.  They were all over me until I gave up the trimming I was doing of some bushes and came inside.

During the afternoon I sewed some, read, cleaned the kitchen, and sewed some more.  I seem to just be experimenting with assorted quilt ideas and don't seem able to find what I like, to move on and continue a project to completion.  Too many ideas; too little time.

The evening was more of the same; reading and sewing.  I made a sandwich for supper and I think Ron napped the afternoon away.

Hearing this morning in church with the cable to my Cochlear sound processor was good.  I was glad to be able to hear the various special parts of the service as well as the sermon.  Using the cable takes out background noises because it receives sound straight from the podium microphone.  Background noises are the biggest problem.  After church I talked to the architect of the construction project for a while.  I have known him for many years but had not seen him recently.  I don't know that he knows I had gone deaf.  Usually now, people don't know it unless I tell them.  They have no idea I am using the Cochlear Implant.  What a blessing!

We are currently having a thunder and lightening storm (1:00 a.m. Monday morning).  I went out on the front porch to listen to the thunder a few minutes ago and it is good to be able to hear it!  More rain!  Blowing rain!  Front porch is soaking wet - must be a north wind.