8/30/2009

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

It started out Sunday with a small group gathered for Morning Worship. Among them was a woman whose first encounter with the church was seeing the horses during Bible School. She and Vonceil visited while watching the activity and this was her first return to the church.

Meanwhile, Danny participated in church with the Towson Congregation. He had been invited there to share his testimony with the group.

Just before Kids’ Church, Keith and his mom stopped by. He asked me, “What was the name of the lady at Bible School who had to go to the hospital?” I helped him spell “Ms. Gloria” for the envelope on the card he’d bought her and promised to deliver it to her that evening.

We again had a first-time visitor at Kids’ Church. A girl whose aunt lives beside the church wanted to come. They both stayed for the service and thoroughly enjoyed themselves. It was our last Sunday with the Armor of God theme and also our last Sunday with our current teaching format.

Just after the service Sarah stopped in. She had the mission center’s labyrinth and was getting it to Vonceil so she could take it with her to the Women’s Retreat in September. Sarah and I hadn’t visited in a while so we caught up on some of the summer’s events.

Most of the people who gathered for Evening Worship were under the age of 14. The only person between the kids and me (age wise) was Tayvia. With this group we circled the chairs and talked about each others needs for the week ahead. They each then took turns praying for those particular needs.

After the service I stopped by Gloria’s house to deliver the card from Keith. She was doing much better. On my way home the grandmother of the girl who came to Kids’ Church stopped me to tell me how much her granddaughter enjoyed the afternoon and of their plans for returning next week.

We’d run low on lots of our supplies at the church. Over the summer we’d bought things to fill in the gaps as we’d run out but with the start of fall it was time to restock. We started that process Tuesday with a big trip to Sam’s Club. While there we also bought some things we needed for the teacher care packages.

The HVAC repair man came by first thing Wednesday morning. He checked out the system and found nearly $1800 worth of repairs needed. The air conditioning works fine but the system will not heat the building until the repairs are made.

By 9:00 a.m. the nursing class had arrived. This semester, the University of Maryland is using the front room of the church for a classroom and base for 8 students and their instructor. They’ll gather on Wednesday mornings for class then go out in the community for home health visiting. After they finish their visits they’ll again gather at the church and debrief their experiences.

While they were having class in the front room I was sorting school supplies in the back. I began organizing what donations we had on hand so that we could know what was most needed when we spent our donations given for this project.

That evening after the Narcotics Anonymous meeting, Patricia, Tamara, Bryce, Onalee, and I assembled the teacher care packages. While we were doing this we tried to remember how many falls we’ve done this. We’re not sure but we estimated that this is our 10th year of doing this.

On Thursday we spent a lot of time updating materials for fall. Our programming is changing this fall so we designed new fliers, talked with Don about web site updates, and made new posters for the front sign.

That afternoon Robert and I delivered the teacher care packages to the schools. That evening lots of people were outside on their steps so I had a chance to visit with many different people.

I met George in Catonsville on Friday morning. Again this year, his wife Sally had hunted down bargain school supplies which she donated to the congregation. They provided several boxes of paper, notebooks, folders, and a variety of other supplies for distribution on Sunday.

Once back from there, Tamara and I went out shopping for additional school supplies. We were short on glue, markers, and colored pencils this year so we spent the $100 we’d received on those items.

We’d turned in our updated tri-fold fliers to get them printed. When Tamara and I stopped by the copy center on the way home they had them ready. We took a look and discovered that they’d printed the back of the sheets upside down. We waited while they reran the copies.

Crystal and I worked on the congregation’s Facebook page that afternoon. Unfortunately, something went terribly wrong. We’re still not sure what happened but the only way we knew how to fix it was to shut it down. We now have a new Facebook site which you can find at

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=home#/pages/Baltimore-MD/The-Power-House-Community-of-Christ/122715621143?ref=nf

All three sessions of Pizza Church went well on Friday evening. Each group took a look at the story of Elisha and Naaman.

We presented an opportunity for our four senior high kids. We had some school supplies that we didn’t have enough of to be a part of the distribution on Sunday (i.e. we had 5 backpacks, 8 folders with designs on them (versus the hundreds of plane ones), etc.) and we were also in need of people to help staff the event. We cut a deal with this group that let them each pick out a backpack and put their supplies in it then leave it at the church. They could pick it up after they’ve helped staff the afternoon. All four took advantage of this proposal and their backpacks are full and waiting for them on Sunday.

I started to fold some of the new tri-fold schedules on Saturday evening so we would have them ready for Sunday morning. As I started folding I realized that the fronts and backs, though right side up, were not aligned correctly and that there was no way to fold them and still have them look right. Fortunately, the copy center was still open so they ran the set for us for the third time. This time it worked.

When I got back to the church with the copies Robert was there starting to get things clean for the morning. Damon and Fred joined him in getting the work done.

Looking ahead to next week we have our regular schedule of activities. In addition, our school supply distribution is Sunday starting at 3:00 p.m. SonRisers resumes Wednesday morning. We also start our new format for our Wednesday night activities that evening. On Thursday I’ll be participating in a leadership webinar through the Willow Creek Association.

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

The White Family
The Shurgars Family
The Hines Family
The Williams Family
The Geisler Family
The Leslie Family
The Taylor Family
The Fogel 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