4/20/2008

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



It started out around 5:00 a.m. with a power outage throughout of the neighborhood. Most of the neighborhood was totally in the dark. The street where the church is located though, had pockets of power. At the church, some of the lights and some of the outlets worked while others, even on the same circuit, didn’t. We were able to rig things enough to have services in the morning. Even with the electricity out, we had one of the best crowds we’ve had since Easter. We kept the service a little shorter than usual as the building was a bit chilly with the blower not working.



By the time Kids’ Church rolled around the electricity was completely out. The kids were especially hyperactive having not had electricity yet that day and it was difficult to keep any semblance of order. To top it off, the battery on our alarm system was getting low so every 15 seconds (yes, we timed it) it let out a very loud high pitched screech for one second. This got old fast.



At 6:00 it was starting to get dark, the building was cold, we had no way to project lyrics or play music, and the alarm was still screeching. At that point we gave up for the day and sent the handful of people who came for the service home for the night. The power came back on across the neighborhood after 7:00 p.m.



At 5:30 Monday morning Danny took me to the airport. I flew to Missouri for a series of meetings at church headquarters. I got back late Tuesday night. Tamara watched Bryce and Onalee so that Vonceil could pick me up.



84 kids participated in Wednesday morning’s SonRisers activities. That night the Adult Disciples group studied Acts 1-2. They also finalized their decision to read C.S. Lewis’ book “Prince Caspian” together to learn some discipleship principles from it. We last did something like this a couple of summers ago when we read “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe” together.



After Men’s Group and Exercise Group on Thursday I met with Marjorie, the Director of Community Nursing Education at the University of Maryland. She’s been working in the community and wanted to see what it was like at night. We walked around together for nearly 90 minutes interacting with people. We also discussed ways in which we could collaborate to address the critical needs before us.



We learned this week that one of our young adults who had dropped out of school has an opportunity to further her education. To support her, Jenn went out and bought a variety of school supplies to equip her for the tasks ahead.



Friday night brought Pizza Church. The first group went well. The second group had more people outside the church than inside and those outside were doing their best to distract the kids inside and disrupt the program. The third group went better but all but one of the kids left without eating.



On Saturday Tamara and a couple of others from the congregation participated in the Healing Workshop in Towson. That night she, Jenn, and I took a couple of kids to Friendly’s to celebrate their participation in church activities this year.



Looking ahead to next week we’ll have our regular schedule of activities. In addition, we’re hoping that Becky Savage will be able to stop by the neighborhood on her way from the healing workshop to the airport. During the week several of us will be working with a conflict resolution model. On Wednesday we have a person celebrating 20 years clean and sober at the NA meeting so their gathering will have extended hours. Next Saturday we have a baby shower scheduled for the building. That evening is our monthly Sundae Church.



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



Justin

Raymond

Donald

Ebony

Bob

Shirley

Patricia

Violet



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