January 2020: Another New Beginning

Wow! It’s been a long time since we continued our story. We moved into our new apartment and got ourselves settled. This time we stayed for more than a year. God sent us to a church to once again help meet a need, but this time the need was very different. The pastor of this church wanted to grow his congregation. Of course, having over 31 years of ministry we have done almost everything you can think of. We had the pastor and his wife over to talk to them. The pastor wanted us to do a Seder at his church. We have done many Seders for different churches over the years, so we were more than happy to do one at his church. We got involved in hosting, greeting, and doing the announcements and found once again just how fast time slips away. The rest of 2018 had come and gone.
When we got closer to the time to plan the Seder, we had the pastor over again because he had said that he would like for us to teach about the Biblical feast days, so we planned to have a luncheon and a teaching for each of the feast days. You can read these special teachings, and you can view the pictures taken at these events.
We had a great time doing the Purim play and taking pictures of all of our “Queens for a Day,” and we celebrated Pentecost by doing a play about Ruth, which is a traditional reading for Pentecost. We followed the Seder with unleavened desserts. We enjoyed blowing our toy shofars for Rosh Hashanah, and we put up a Sukkah for the Feast of Tabernacles. We ended the year with Hanukkah, singing songs for the holiday and enjoying cookies, candy, and the final teaching which connected the Feast of Dedication to the birth of Messiah. Also in 2019 we did two of our Bible studies. So 2019 was a very busy year. We put out several new brochures on Godliness and Holiness and on Mystery Babylon.
Well, getting back to growing this church . . . it didn’t happen. The pastor ended up leaving at the end of 2019 and the church was now left without a pastor. Like we have done at many other churches who found themselves without a pastor, we encouraged the people to pray and trust God. Many people left and the church district took the church over as a satellite church. It is like everything else in the world: the big is taking over the small. We seem to be losing individuality. But, the time came when God told us it was time to move on, and we did.
So once again we find ourselves beginning a new chapter in our lives. New beginnings are good. Always a new adventure, a new challenge, but always doing the work of the Lord. Shalom!