7/12/2009

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



It started out Sunday with a good crowd at Morning Worship. The communion message centered on Lamentations 3:22-23.



Ron Gillilan dropped off Paul Davis before Kids’ Church. He shared a story from his travels to Bolivia for the church with the kids. We then all made crafts together.



As soon as we finished I took Paul over to the Dundalk congregation. He met with people there to tour the kitchen and get some further information for a grant they were writing. While there we ran into George and Gail. They had been given a carload of bread so they filled the trunk of my car to share it with the folks in our congregation.



Once we got back to Pigtown it was nearly time for Evening Worship. We had an unusually large crowd gather for the night. During the service several people who were at camp, both staff and campers, shared some of their experiences with the congregation. Paul then told of work the church is doing in Aruba. After that we shared in a huge potluck dinner together.



Once people were full and had taken home loaves of bread we still had some bread leftover. We took the loaves down the street and gave them to some neighbors who were out on their steps enjoying the evening.



Paul and I caught breakfast at Italianos before I took him to the airport Monday morning. That evening we took some kids who had attended church 90+ times last year to Golden Corral dinner. Two of them threw up before we went home.



Marjorie, Donna, and I met at the church early Tuesday morning. We put together a plan for nursing students to be based at the church as they provide home health visits each Wednesday during the fall semester.



Just as they were leaving, the group from Paul’s Place arrived. Their summer program for kids was using the building for an activity and for lunch. They finished up by 12:30 so they could make it to the library for more activities there.



I sat in front of the computer most of the day on Wednesday and Thursday. We had lots of odds and ends that needed to be taken care of (like getting travel information and guidelines to each of our kids going to IYF and Spectacular) plus two major projects.



One project was to write a grant. The Kresge Foundation is taking grants for arts projects in the area so we’re seeing if they will fund a mural painting project. While contacting other community organizations in the neighborhood for letters of support I learned that they were working on grants for their own projects, too. We ended up all writing letters of support for each others projects.



The second project had to do with the state and city. Since our tax status was finally corrected a few weeks ago we’re entitled to a refund of the taxes collected over the past 16 months. I had to get copies of all our bills, fill out itemized forms, and provide various other pieces of information to each jurisdiction. Some months we paid over $116 just in taxes on our utilities. The packets went out in Friday’s mail. We’ll see how long it will take to get things back from the two jurisdictions.



I learned Thursday afternoon that Nancy, along with 10 other people at her work, had been laid off that day. She’s the mom of one of our kids that is going to IYF and Spectacular.



I visited this week with one of the nursing students who graduated this spring. She was Marjorie’s teaching assistant so she and I had worked on some projects together. She’s going to come and help one day at Bible School so we discussed what her role would be.



We had our monthly Priesthood Meeting on Thursday evening. For a good portion of the meeting we talked about ideas for revamping this fall’s schedule of activities to better meet the needs of the community.



Friday night brought Pizza Church. The younger kids read Acts 19:11-20 while the senior high kids read Philippians 1-2.



Starting at 1:00 a.m. that night we had a series of prank phone calls. Once we got that taken care of a street fight broke out on the block where I live. It took four police officers to break it up.



Several of us met up in Springfield, Virginia, on Saturday for some of the activities at our Mission Center Reunion. Meanwhile, Vonceil worked at home on some equipment needs for our worship services.



Our monthly Solid Rock Café was on Saturday night. Oddly, only middle school students participated in the activities that night.



Looking ahead to next week we have our regular schedule of activities. In addition, Dan Redick will be here on Sunday evening to talk about Graceland University during Evening Worship. Afterward he’s meeting with high school students and their parents to talk about specifics for admission. We’ll also be putting the finishing touches on the plans for getting kids to IYF and Spectacular.



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



The Schneider Family

The Harris Family

The Meyer Family

The Latham Family

The Ludwig Family

The Beyer Family

The Pelsinski Family

The Hardy 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