11/20/2005

It's been a busy week at the Power House in Baltimore, Maryland.

We had a good crowd out Sunday morning with several people we hadn't seen in a while coming back. After the service, I learned from Violet that her son Jerry, who has been battling Leukemia, was back in the hospital. His kidneys had shut down and they were fearing dialysis and possibly a need for a transplant. She and I went up to the hospital after the service for anointing and prayer.

At Kids' Church we learned about the story of the lost sheep. The kids made sheep refrigerator magnets out of wood.

At the last minute we scrapped the planned message for Evening worship. Instead, Danny shared about some of the trials that have been going on in his life the last several months and how God had working on him through them.

The day Monday started with a trip to a nearby supermarket to get a steeply discounted frozen turkey (limit 1) for use at our upcoming Grand Opening celebration. The rest of the morning was spent painting the floor of the new balcony.

Right after lunch I met with the people responsible for the fire and security alarm. They're still a couple weeks from getting it installed but are getting closer to its completion.

I got a call from Violet that afternoon. Jerry's kidneys had returned to full function that day.

When Gloria got to the church for Women's group Monday night she called me over to the building because there was a problem with the lights. Some worked and some didn't, and not in consistent patterns. The overhead lights didn't work in the main rooms of both the new and old buildings but the bathroom lights did. The outdoor lights worked on the front of the building (except for the sign) but not at the back. The lights in the balcony looked like they were in a brown out. Danny and I went through all the old and new circuit breakers but couldn't find anything out of the ordinary. The we called the power company. They came out, decided the problem was somewhere down the alley and, about 3 hours later, restored the power throughout the building.

We continued our frozen turkey quest on Tuesday. We bought three more that day. With the two we bought last week that makes six that we've got stored in freezers around the neighborhood.

Wednesday brought SonRisers with just over 100 kids participating in it. Shirley had had surgery on her arm this week to help the healing from when she broke it several weeks ago on her way home from SonRisers. She was in a lot of pain but doing well. The Adult Disciples group studied the second half of the book of Acts on Wednesday night.

Throughout the week we received several checks in the mail from people wishing to buy chairs for the new building. So far we have enough for 69 of the 100. We've already ordered the full 100 and expect their delivery next Monday.

We spent a couple of hours on Thursday at The Home Depot. We needed a lot of odds and ends (deadbolt locks for the closet doors, a couple gallons of paint, new innards for the toilets, light bulbs, etc.) and I had a 10% off coupon that we took full advantage of.

During the day on Friday we put a second coat of paint on the balcony floor and painted the remaining trim in the bathroom. That afternoon the concrete was poured for our parking pad. There was a communication problem about the size of the area being paved so they needed $600 more in cement than was originally ordered. We had to come up with the money on the spot. After pizza church we started working on putting new flooring in that bathroom.

While I was doing a little more work on the bathroom tiles on Saturday nigh, Donald stopped by the church. He had come back to town from Graceland University a couple days early for his Thanksgiving break. He seemed impressed by the new building. He'll be here through next Sunday when he'll go back to school for the last few weeks of classes for this semester.

Looking ahead to next week we have our full schedule of activities. In addition we have our annual dessert potluck after Evening Worship on Sunday. The chairs are scheduled for delivery on Monday morning. We have several people out of town mid-week so we'll be working on staffing for Wednesday's SonRisers activities. We will not have Adult Disciples on Wednesday night or Men's Group on Thursday night due to Thanksgiving. Next Saturday night is our monthly Sundae Church.

Along with the individuals and activities mentioned as well as the continued progress on finalizing our building project, please keep the following persons in the forefront of your prayers:

Kevin
Jami
Unique
Yoneko
Angel
Gregory
Michael
Perez

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