My dear partners in ministry,
What a week that was! We had a marvelous and productive week in Haiti. I got stuck at the airport on Saturday because I had packed my expired passport but the team went on before me. I drove to Tampa and got my passport and then back to Ft Lauderdale Sunday morning. By the time I got to Callabasse the team had been to church and accomplished several tasks around the orphanage (the House of Blessing). On Monday we removed the rubble from the fallen school so it could be rebuilt. Then Tuesday thru Thursday we put up houses and did a multitude of repairs both in the area and in the orphanage. It was a marvelous week of cross-cultural education and service for Jesus Christ. There are three families who have homes that had not before and they are ready to start building the school. It was a spectacular mission week.
I know a great deal happened while I was gone as well. My thanks to Pastor Diana for filling the pulpit for me. And special thanks to Renee, the Steven’s ministry and Pastor Karen for collecting school supplies and seeing that the needy students in the midst of our church family got all that they needed to start the school year. We have traditionally prayed for our students and our teachers at the start of school for the school year. Did we get that done or do we need to do that next Sunday?
Sunday morning looked like Fall and was a tad darker on the drive in. Vaughn was busy at work as I arrived and Danny was not far behind me. Danny has used his unemployment to put in many hours at the church weeding, cleaning, clearing and fixing. The property looks tons better with his attention. A huge thank you to him! Danny got the platform cleaned up while I got the sanctuary anointed and communion set up. I completely forgot about a communion meditation until I walked down the hall Sunday. My deepest apologies. I found four old meditations there and kind of left a selection for those who came. I’ll get on the stick better this week. We got the band prayed up and started and Pastors Diana and Karen anointed me. After some quiet preparation and a moment at the table of the Lord, I was ready to tackle the day.
Service attendance was solid with both halves of the congregation together. Richard and Debi Fields drove over to join us and Jeff and Joni Frymire were in attendance. It was good to see Gladys and the girls back with us and Spanish attendance was way up. We started with announcements and I showed a video from our Haiti trip. Tom, Steve and Ron gave testimonies. Lissette did translation for them and for me. A huge word of thanks to her for bringing her giftedness into play to make the day. You can watch the service here
I have spent some time with Trevor and Carlos designing our Spanglish services and they spent extra time practicing. I thought it showed yesterday. We did one song in Spanish, one song in both languages and one in English. All three are favorites, so I thought it spectacular, top drawer, best to date! Then Tato Caballero did the offertory. Wow! What do we call it? Columbian Contemporary Worship Jazz? It was very moving and very well done. Thank you Tato! Pastor Karen showed off her bilingual skills with the children’s sermon. She showed the kids some origami she had done and talked about the plan and the instructions to get that done. God has a plan for us too, to make us a piece of art but we too must follow the instructions. Thanks PK! Then the kids were off with Sharon and Nyssa to children’s church. We headed into prayer time. The prayer songs were on the loud side but very good and added to the atmosphere. We did some significant prayer work during that time. I always get amazed at how real we get during prayer time at Oak Grove. I preached from Deuteronomy 8 on placing our hope in God and not in other things. I did a good job with the slides both in picture and content. Lissette did a yeoman’s job translating. We had a good service.
Curt M has developed for us a system of sending video emails. We had talked for some time about creating some encouragement for our pastors abroad by sending them video greetings. So, with all the congregation together, we took the opportunity to send some love to Pastor Sanjay in Siliguri after the final song and prayer. My thanks to everyone for their cooperation and for hanging in there thru a long and warm service. Lightening hit our thermostats once again making our AC rather poor on the day. Thank you brother Eric for staying on top of that and keeping both the AC and the freezer in repair!
Notes I can remember:
1. Wed is the return of our Family Night ministry!!!!
2. Friday Night Red Calling is in concert and in ministry again. Please pray for them.
3. Saturday Integrity Music is doing a workshop at Oak Grove at 5:00pm. Even the slightest interest in worship music and it would be well worth your time.
4. Javier and Jessica are getting married October 9th!!!
5. We are going to cease printing monthly newsletters and try to make the weekly bulletins more like weekly newsletters. Please give us feedback as we go along..
6. There was some interest in the Oak Grove desert camo shirts we did for the group going to Haiti. We could do another run. If you are interested talk to PD or Tom.
That’s all for today, except to say thank you to you again for all you do – continue to connect with God, each other and the world.
Know that I love you – Denny