6/25/2005

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

It started out Sunday, June 12, with our three services. During morning worship we
talked about preparing ourselves for significant encounters with God. At Kids' Church we
switched to our summer songs and later made edible crafts. That evening we shared
reflections from World Conference as a part of Evening Worship.

Bryce, Onalee, and I headed out on vacation the next morning. While we were gone Jenn
lead Adult Disciples, Tamara taught Pizza Church, Vonceil offered the message at Morning
Worship, Jenn lead Kids' Church, and Shawna lead devotions during Evening Worship.

That Wednesday also brought the last SonRisers of the school year. This year was by far
the best attended since starting SonRisers in the fall of 2000. Over the course of this
school year, 476 kids attended SonRisers at least once. For 414 of those kids it was
their first contact with the congregation this year. We served nearly 7000 donuts this
year.

Construction has actually begun on our addition. They started digging the footings the
week I was away. At this point, most of the footings are poured and some walls are
beginning to go up. They're moving along quite quickly as the weather has been
cooperative.

They have had some vandalism and damage, however. The police have been uncooperative in
even looking at the situation and filing a report. Further, it appears that we had an
attempted break-in to the existing building.

We've also run into some funding problems for camp. Several of the business who had
planned to sponsor kids this year either backed out or reduced the number of kids they
would fund. We've been scrambling this week to come up with additional funding to bridge
the gap. We've had some success but are still falling way short of what we need to pay
the bill with only one week to go before camp.

We had a most unusual Pizza Church on Friday. As water was run and toilets flushed
during the first session we noticed a growing smell of raw sewage. Apparently something
went wrong during the pouring of the footings and a pipe is either backed up or broken
(or both) beneath the building. We ended up holding the third session on the front steps
with only limited success in keeping the kids attention.

I contacted the builder and he was to send someone down to fix it on Saturday. Though I
did get a phone call double checking the alarm code on the building no one came to fix
the problem that day.

Saturday evening brought our monthly Sundae Church. The group came in two waves. The
first group ate their ice cream quickly so just as they were finishing eating some
latecomers appeared and joined the activities. Shortly thereafter the first group left
so it was really two small groups instead of one big one.

Looking ahead to next week we have our full schedule of activities. We may end up moving
our church services to the park if the smell is strong in the morning. In addition we
have 5 kids who we'll be taking to an Orioles game on Thursday for having come to church
on average of 2 or more times a week during the past 12 months. We'll also be making
final preparations for camp and working at securing funding for our kids' attendance
there.

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

the Caruso family
the Cunningham family
the Riddick family
the Cox family
the Quick family
the Burrs family
the Johnson family
the St. Thomas 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