10/17/2010

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

It started out with a Homecoming Breakfast early Sunday morning. We didn't have as many people come this year as we did last year but those who came seemed to enjoy the food and fellowship quite thoroughly.

More people joined the group for Morning Worship. This included a woman who is a part of the Wednesday services a the Dundalk Congregation. Someone had posted our Homecoming flier on their bulletin board so she'd hopped the bus across town to have a chance of pace for Sunday.

After the service we had a "game day" lunch. Tamara cooked hot dogs on the grill and we had bags of chips and cans of pop. After lunch a few people stayed to watch the Ravens game on the big screen in the front room.

We've been learning from the book of Ezra for a couple weeks at Kids' Church. Sunday's lesson was about the theme of remembering God's laws. We decided to review the 10 Commandments then have the kids do a corresponding sticker page craft. We had surplus copies of this craft from when we studied Exodus last year and were able to easily find it because of the organizing and categorizing that our World Service Corps volunteers did back in August.

I got a message that afternoon that the last of the Peacemobile materials. When we picked up the trailer in August, a few of the centers were on loan to another congregation in Michigan. The materials had now been returned to the Wadhams Grove Congregation in Michigan. We're now looking at ways to get these remaining items to Maryland.

Sunday night was our monthly priesthood meeting. Tamara shared about her experience at the African American Ministries Conference, we finalized the calendar through the end of the year, and we reviewed the status of some of the ministries, including our statistics on kid participation and the progress on the Peace Pavilion.

Our Mission Center President, our President of Seventy, and our Apostle all arrived in Pigtown Monday morning. We spent about 3 hours together touring the neighborhood, discussing ministry challenges, and having lunch together.

Not long after they left I got a knock on the door. A neighbor whose kids had come to church when they were in middle school came by to let me know that her uncle had died. They were wanting to have me lead a memorial service. I'm scheduled to be out of town the day they could have it so I got them connected with Earl. He was willing to take the lead in it.

We were in contact with Graceland University on Tuesday. Sarah had informed us of a new scholarship opportunity for kids who are members of our denomination. I got the further information I needed and got Fred and Crystal each on track to receive it. This scholarship is a super opportunity as it will cover about half of their tuition.

108 kids participated in Wednesday's SonRisers activities. After they left we put the finishing trim on the floor in the balcony and started to haul out the tools and scraps. The nursing class came a little late that morning as did the NA group that evening. After a very small Mid-Week Service that evening we spent some time cleaning up all the sawdust off the new floor. (We'd decided to use the power tools inside and deal with the mess rather than setting them up outside and risk having them stolen (again) mid-project.)

With Peace Pavilion's space now looking pretty good (you can see current and past pix at http://pigtownpeacepavilion.blogspot.com/) we started pulling the "Peace for Me" materials out on Thursday morning. This took a couple of calls to Michigan so we could make sure we understood what we were looking for. Further, we learned which "Peace for Me" materials are still in Michigan. It's only a couple small items so we should be able to work around it for now if necessary.

That evening was a public lecture at St. Mary's Seminary about Biblical perspectives on land use. I was able to attend it and came away with some ideas and opportunities for our congregation.

Friday night brought Pizza Church. The kids had been out of school the past two days for staff development and they were pretty chatty throughout the evening. Shortly after the last group left a couple of our neighbors came by to let us know that, shortly after leaving the church, several of the kids went over to the park an set things on fire. The fire department was packing up by the time we arrived. Naturally when confronted, the kids were totally unaware that there had even been a fire in the park.

While we were running errands on Saturday we found two high quality backpacks on clearance at 75% off. We bought them and stashed them away for next year's school supply drive. These were not the first donations for next fall, though, as Sally and George gave us a box of items when we were at Mission Center Conference last weekend.

Looking ahead to next week we have our full schedule of activities. In addition, we'll have our monthly Celebration Service on Sunday night at 6:00 p.m. This service will include a potluck dinner. We're planning on shopping for some additional supplies for the Peace Pavilion midweek. One of the leaders of the NA group is celebrating a milestone in being clean and sober this Wednesday so they'll be having a meal together after the meeting. I'll be out of town for meetings next weekend. Earl will be leading a memorial service at the church during the day on Saturday. Saturday night is our monthly Sundae Church.

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

The Stewart Family
The Brown Family
The Jones Family
The Star Family
The Giraldo Family
The Leach Family
The Parker Family
The Taylor 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
http://thisweekatthepowerhouse.blogspot.com/