Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Where was I?......

Oh, yes. I was telling you about the long weekend, but I've had a few long weeks at The Office where I've not been able to finish my story.

I know you're terribly distraught.

Anyway, I did manage to change clothes in the 2 minutes I had left after walking from the van into the room where my clothes were. I did manage to change and be out for starting time. A little (read: lot) sweaty perhaps, but there and ready to lead congregational singing while being out of breath. It's a vision of loveliness, isn't it? (Do you think I can't hear you laughing?)

The thought for the weekend was "Farther On - I Can Only Imagine", and it became more than I could imagine that weekend. We started the evening off singing "The Unclouded Day". You've never heard it sung til you hear 200+ women singing it in 3-part harmony. Wow! What a sound.

We had some special music by one of our new good friends, Patty Ross. She wrote her own songs - and played them on a 12-string guitar, no less. They were beautiful.

The girls from my youth group did a fantastic job, too. I'm so proud of them.

Kyla was the speaker for this meeting and she was truly led by the Spirit. She just laid out what God wanted her to say, and we had one person go to the altar. Her mom goes to our church. She'd gone to church when she was younger and stopped coming. I was surprised to see her there, but I'm glad she was. She rededicated her life and committed to raise her daughter in church. What a big step for her.

After the altar call was over, we broke for light refreshments. By this time, it's about 9:15. That's almost 3 hours of church. It didn't seem like it at all.

When we came back from the break, there was a slideshow of cross and sky pics. This was one of Bop's projects. She'd gone to different churches in the area, as well as any road trip that was taken, and took pics of crosses on the outsides of buildings, crosses that were standing in the "church yards", windows that had crosses in them, she even went to the cemetary and took pics of tombstones. (You get some of the best cross and church pics from the cemetary.) Well, while these were rolling thru like a slideshow, we'd picked some scripture about the cross and had different women read these passages. Then, the slideshow was turned off, and a recording was played. It was a man reading scripture in monologue style, telling the story of how man fell, God sacrificed Christ to be the redemption for man's sin, and how we can take all our cares and lay them at the feet of Jesus for Him to take care of. During this recording, there comes a black-robed individual dragging a cross up the aisle. When the voices on the recording came to where Christ was crucified, the black-robed person laid the cross on the floor and drove spikes into it. Then, some music started to play - the first song was titled, "Nail it to the cross". One by one, the ladies came and nailed their prayer requests to this cross. After the ladies were finished, the black-robed person went into the room behind the platform. Then, a white-robed person came out with a huge, red piece of fabric and draped it over the cross.

Women were shouting and praising the Lord. It was one of the most powerful experiences I've ever been a part of. After we were done praying for the requests we nailed to the cross, we dismissed for the night.

Stay tuned to find out how Saturday went...

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

I'M BACK!!!

Where to begin? Hmmmmm. (This might get a little long - sorry!)

#1 - Long weekend.

I spent the long weekend working on the Ladies Meeting that was coming up. Lots of time spent at the sewing machine. I finished my costume and a couple other projects for the upcoming meeting. Then, we (Mom, her BFF - Bop, C, and me) spent all day Monday at church decorating. Bop & C took care of the fellowship hall (seperate building). Mom & I worked on the main building.

Lots of wreaths, flowers, potpourri, and such flying around in the sanctuary. It turned out beautiful, if I do say so myself. There was also much ladder lugging. Do you know how heavy a petrified wooden step-ladder is? Waaaaaaaaay to heavy.

Mom fixed a huge flower arrangement for the top of the piano (baby grand in the sanctuary) and one for the communion table, but they needed something between these arrangements and the wood. Our sanctuary has dark wood in it. The piano is kinda dark, but the communion table is cherry wood with mahogany stain. So, Mom bought 2 tablecloths in a country blue (the sanctuary has blue carpet and pews) , one was draped across the top of the piano and set the arrangement on top; the other, I cut about 15" off the end. It became a table runner for the communion table. The rest of it was used as a regular table cloth for the registration table.

We absolutely wore ourselves out on Monday. Now, I know you're wondering, did you cook out or anything, seeing as how it was Labor Day and all? No. We had a delicious meal, which was picked up at Subway on the way back from one of the numerous trips to Wal-Mart. Rest assured, we did not starve.

#2 - Practice with the girls from the youth group.

I can't remember if I told you that I was going to have the girls from the youth group help me with the theme song for the Ladies Meeting, but that was the plan.

I was going to use all 5 of them to help me. Then, one of them (SG), her mom had to have emergency surgery. She was out. Down to 4. Then, I got a call from a different one (S). Her parents decided to have her (and her younger brother) pick one sport to play per school year. (It makes sense to me. You can't be in 684 places at one time, so they get to pick one.) Well, she picked volleyball. It just so happens that this is volleyball season. I told her to go have fun. She's out. Down to 3. Yet again, my phone rang. It was B's mom. She explained to me that, even though B told me she would do it, she gets stage fright - so she won't be there, either. She's out. Down to 2. I told E and M that it was up to them. They told me they were up to the challenge.

#3 - Friday.

I left work about noon-ish. Then I stopped to pick up some ham salad, pick up C, drop off a deposit at the bank, pick up some lunch, and get to church as early as possible. We got there about 1:30. Which was good considering that there was a FOOTBALL! GAME! ON! SATURDAY! And there were only 9,670,000,000 people in our city - all for the game. You could say that traffic was bad. Actually, that would be an understatement.

Kyla came down to set up her stuff. We did a sound check while she was there - boy, did we sound good!! When we got done, she left to get a little rest, a bite to eat and the diva look going. Then about 5:30, Mom came back. No sooner did she set her purse down, her cell rang. One group of ladies (from a town about 2 hours-ish away) called and said that their bus was broke down at their hotel in the other end of town. They needed a ride. So, I asked Mom for her keys and took her minivan. (I would've drove my car, but I only have a small car.) By the time I pulled onto the parking lot with those women, I had 3 minutes to start time. Talk about pushing it.

To be continued....