1/10/2010

It’s been a busy couple of weeks at the Power House in Baltimore, Maryland.

It started on Sunday, December 27, with Morning Worship. We knew several people were out of town for the holidays but one new person came back from the Christmas Eve service and some neighbors we hadn’t seen in many months came, too. We finished our Christmas sermon series that day.

Naturally, those gathered for Kids’ Church were still quite excited about their Christmas experience. We took that energy and had them make thank you notes for people who had helped make Christmas special for them this year.

With the holidays landing the way they did most of our regularly scheduled activities were cancelled for the rest of that week. The only main event still taking place was the NA Meeting.

We learned toward the end of the week that Elizabeth had been hospitalized over concerns about her heart. Tamara and I visited her in the hospital on Sunday (1/3) evening and I went up a couple other times during the week. She ended up having bypass surgery and will be hospitalized for a while.

Also that week, Safeway officially announced to the public that it was closing. (It had been rumored for a few weeks.) Once it is gone in mid-January we will no longer have a supermarket or full-service pharmacy within walking distance of the neighborhood. People are quite concerned about the ramifications.

We returned to our full schedule of activities on Sunday, January 3. We celebrated the Lord’s Supper during Morning Worship. Strong, bitter cold winds kept some folks home that morning but a father and son who we’d recently met during SonRisers joined the group for worship.

We resumed our study of the Old Testament at Kids’ Church by looking at the stories in the book of Joshua. A Veggie-Tale helped illustrate the story for us this week.

As Tamara and I were coming out of the hospital we were stopped on the street by a man in need of help. He said that he had tried to change busses at the Greyhound station earlier in the day but got jumped when he went out of the station to get some lunch. He’d spent much of the day in the hospital. He wasn’t sure how to get back to the station or how he was going to get to New York. We helped him get reoriented, took him to the station, and let him make some calls to family and friends so he could get back on his way.

We learned that night that the official date for camp this summer is July 5-10. Vonceil and I each immediately shopped for rental vans to help transport the kids. Since it starts on a Monday this year we won’t get the weekend rates we’re used to getting. We booked vans at the weekday rate but will begin looking for more cost-effective alternatives.

On Monday we took the Christmas care packages to the schools. We had obviously planned to give them out before Christmas but the snows closed the schools the three days before Christmas break. One of the schools seemed glad to get them. The office staff at the other school looked at me like I had three heads.

I got a call from Americorps on Tuesday to see if some of the group could come on Wednesday to meet kids at SonRisers. Later that evening Gloria chaired the monthly meeting of the Friends of Carroll Park.

Only a handful of kids participated in Wednesday’s SonRisers activities. I believe it’s the smallest group we’ve had in a couple of years. The Americorps folks didn’t get the full SonRisers experience. Even with that we had two kids who came to church for the first time that morning.

During the day we worked on curriculum planning and sermon scheduling. I didn’t get as much done as I’d hoped but at least have the next few weeks planned.

Wednesday night was our Mid-Week service. Afterward, Gloria and Earl had a meeting at the church.

The Census Bureau contacted us this week. They are hiring temporary workers and need to have them take a test before they make hiring decisions. They were looking for a place to have the tests in our area the people with limited transportation could access and wondered if we had space they could use. This was a great chance to help local people get work so we jumped at the opportunity. We coordinated calendars and have three testing dates scheduled over the next couple of weeks.

Friday night brought Pizza Church. The first session had a big group while the other two groups were very small. Next week the elementary and middle school groups will begin a video based series that will last a couple of months. In between sessions Tamara and Robert took down the remaining Christmas decorations.

I got called back up to the hospital on Saturday afternoon. Elizabeth had to be taken in for some high-risk emergency surgery. I waited with her son until his sister arrived from West Virginia. Once back in the neighborhood I stopped by to let Jenny (one of her best friends) know what was happening.

Our monthly Solid Rock Café was on Saturday evening. All the kids from the last two sessions of Pizza Church came but no others did. Though it was a tiny group, the size worked in our favor as all the kids played together as a group for the entire evening.

During that time I stepped outside to talk with a neighbor. She’s been parking in a way that either blocks the church parking lot (illegally) or actually parking in the church lot so that her van takes up all four spaces. She wasn’t too pleased with the request to move her van so I could get my car out of the lot. She did move it but this time parked in the alley we require to access the lot.

We also learned on Saturday night that Tamara was named “Sailor of the Year” in her position with the Navy Reserves. This is quite an exciting honor.

Looking ahead to next week we have our full schedule of activities. In addition we have a Mission Center Teleconference at 10:30 Sunday morning. Sunday night is our monthly Priesthood Meeting. The first of the Census employment tests will be administered on Friday morning.

Along with the individuals and activities mentioned, please keep the following families in the forefront of your prayers:

The Thomas Family
The Watson Family
The Hill Family
The Doggett Family
The Bolaski Family
The Kerler Family
The Quick Family
The Gray Family

Thank you for your continued prayer support.

Jeff and everyone at
The Power House
“Building the Kingdom of God Here and Now”
PowerHouseMD@Juno.com
www.pigtownchurch.org