8/24/2008

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



It started out Sunday with Morning Worship. As people entered the church they were greeted with the walls decorated as a giant treasure map leading to the cross. The decorations were a part of Bible School and we thought we would leave them up for a few weeks. A small group gathered for the service, one of whom was Gloria’s neighbor who came with her to the service.



We had a project and lesson that we ran out of time to use at Bible School so that’s what we did at Kids’ Church this week. We let the kids request songs from Bible School for our music time that day.



A good sized group gathered for Evening Worship. Not too many people had things to say during our sharing time so the service finished earlier than expected.



Throughout the week continued to work on gathering school supplies for distribution next Sunday. On Monday we went out and spent the money that we’d been given by the Towson congregation and got a whole cartload of crayons, markers, and colored pencils. UPS stopped by on Tuesday and delivered a large box of school supplies from the Hampton, Virginia, congregation. Later in the week I ran down to the Laurel, Maryland, congregation to pick up some supplies they’d collected there. Several members of the congregation brought in supplies this week, too.



We had a meeting this Wednesday afternoon with the nurses planning our Night Clinic this September. We got a few more of the details worked out.



Near the start of that meeting the water supply to the neighborhood was cut off. When I called the city to find out what was going on, they told me that it could be up to four days before water was restored. Fortunately, it was restored in about 5 hours, but it left our evening activities at the church without a basic need.



After the NA meeting (without coffee because of no water) the Adult Disciples assembled the teacher care packages for our neighborhood’s elementary and middle schools. Marjorie, the director of the nursing program who met with us earlier in the afternoon, stopped by and dropped off two large jugs of water for us to use.



We’ve been in a bit of a battle this week with the organizers of the Pigtown Festival. We’ve been planning on setting up a television and a Nintendo Wii to help market our upcoming Family Bowling Nights this fall. The organizers have been resistant to any of our plans to electrify our booth, which is in the “not for profit organizations” area of the festival. They’ve rejected each possible solution we’ve presented. Yet, in the midst of this, they left a message on our machine asking if we, in addition to our booth, would organize activities for kids at the festival. We thanked them but were unable to do this on such short notice.



Bryce, Onalee, and I delivered the teacher care packages to the schools on Thursday. We got to meet the new principal at the middle school. She said she’d gone to bed the night before wishing she’d put together some kind of gift to encourage her staff and found the packets to be a fast answer to her prayers.



In recent days we’ve learned that funding had been made available through church headquarters for an associate pastor here. We spent some time this week filling out the position description form that will be used when the position is posted in the upcoming weeks.



I ran into Dion this week. His grandparents used to live next to the church when it was on Carey Street. He had moved away and I hadn’t seen him for years. He’s 20 now and working as a custodian in Baltimore County Schools and living just a few blocks away.



Around 12:30 Friday afternoon Sarah picked up Damon and Scott. They were all headed to North Carolina for the annual beach retreat. They’ll be back Sunday evening.



We had very small groups for Pizza Church throughout the evening. In them we continued our study of the story of Joseph.



Vandals hit the church overnight. As I walked up to the building on Saturday I saw that the two lights by the back doors had been destroyed. We’ll bump that to the top of a growing list of things in the building that need our attention.



We had a fun time at Sundae Church on Saturday night. We started out watching the Olympics while eating the ice cream the caught a bit of the Ravens game before the kids left. They seemed to have a lot of trouble opening up the ice cream boxes tonight and ended up destroying them in the process.



Looking ahead to next week we have our full schedule of activities. In addition, we’ll be distributing school supplies to kids in the neighborhood on Sunday afternoon. The new school year starts on Monday so SonRisers resumes on Wednesday morning. I’m meeting with a parent support committee leader from the elementary school immediately afterward.



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



The Yankee Family

The Stinchcomb Family

The Stallings Family

The Pelsinski Family

The Kim Family

The Johnson Family

The Jeffers Family

The Fleming 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