Fancy meeting you…

These past couple weeks seem to have been meetings, meetings and more meetings. We just finished another planning meeting this afternoon - I mean, how much more can be planned?! Pretty soon, if there’s any time left over, we’ll be having a meeting to plan the planning meetings.
Now, some meetings are great, like the new Thursday morning small group we started this past week. Everyone involved is excited about the study we’re doing. We are out with small groups both morning and evening on Thursdays, but this one was also Sue’s birthday. Since she doesn’t like regular cake, she made cheesecakes (a cherry one for the morning and a blueberry one for the evening) for each group, but she had to put up with them singing “Happy Birthday” each time.
Thursday, on our way to the first small group meeting, we went to the golden arches for breakfast. That may seem weird to people who have restaurants around that serve breakfast, but we don’t have them here, and this is the first week that our McDonald’s is serving Egg McMuffins and McGriddles plus good cappuccino, so it was a special treat to start the day.
Now, Friday was another day of celebrating Sue’s birthday. We had a group of friends over in the evening for a party.

She got roses, mums and plants, plus, from folks that know she doesn’t have a green thumb, a painting and candles.

It was fun with lots of visiting, goofing around and laughing, and of course, cake and ice cream.

Now, you would think the partying ended there, but no…There was a family game and pizza night at church on Saturday.

There were groups of all ages playing Dominos, Uno, Dutch Blitz, and other games plus some people making puzzles, and even kids bowling.
The pizzas didn’t arrive until almost ten o’clock, and that hungry crowd descended on those like vultures.

But when all was said and done, everyone commented on what a great time it was.
Other exciting things are going on as well. A week ago, we had an Ordinance Sunday, giving the right hand of fellowship and presenting each of the fifteen recently baptized folks with certificates (something so important in this culture that they are often hung up on the wall at home).

The teens than presented a group reading about Jesus’ compassion on the night of the last supper followed by the Lord’s Supper.

Last night’s service was one celebrating Children’s Day - down here this day ranks right up there with Mother’s and Father’s Days.

The service started with a small group of kids in the beginning, but there was quite a group by the story time. Although everyone in the congregation participated, all the music was geared to children and a guest speaker from Child Evangelism came to talk with the little kids while the “bigger” kids, or adults, listened in.

I’ve learned that it’s not hard to get the adults’ attention when telling a good story to children. It was a different, but fun service for everyone.

I guess all that we’ve done involved planning, thus planning meetings. Like them or not, I guess meetings won’t be ending any time soon!