Celebration 2010

The Celebration week started Wed. evening with a meet and greet.  I had picked up Martha earlier that day, she accompanied me to physical therapy, earlier we stopped for a nice breakfast at Cracker Barrel and a craft shop in Spry.
Thursday services began at 1:30 with Joe Kirkpatrick giving a message about grace.  Many enjoyed an evening out to a local restaurant and good fellowship was had by all and at Bob and Beverly's home  in their beautiful spacious garden like yard later.
Friday evening we had a service by candle light and sang songs and read scripture from Rev. 1:5-8.  It shows the history, presence and future of Christ our Savoir and King.  Martha was able to lead with me and the congregation sang with all their hearts, it was a very moving service!
Sabbath morning we were able to sleep in a little as the worship service did not start until 3pm, with bible study before that at 1:30pm. Mike Joseph shared a visual, hands on, lesson with the children about God's holy kingdom.  Bruce gave the message about our temporal bodies and how we can look forward to the day when our permanent perfect bodies live with Christ eternally.   We spent the rest of the day fellowshipping and sharing a meal of soup and subs.
Sunday we met at the church to hear a very stirring message from Calvin Burrell on loving one another.  We then enjoyed a picnic, at a near by lake, and much more fellowship.
Monday we joined early(7AM) for a trip to Washington DC.  We rode the Metro subway into DC, and arrived in the mall area where we split up to see the various museums.  We took in an IMAX of the ocean only to have many tired ones take a $7 nap.  We met to return to the metro at 7-7:30pm, a very tired group.  Dinner was at 9pm at a Cracker Barrel (ready to close).  We arrive home around midnight exhausted.
Wayne Hrenyk had Bruce and I take him to Gettysburg, wed. morning and then we showed him around Harrisburg.  We shared dinner with about ten others at Olive Garden and then returned for services at 7pm.  Wayne spoke with a heavy heart about our need to reach our loved ones who still resist Christ.  He seemed to struggle to reach us but as he had us break up into groups later and pray, it was evident he had certainly hit a chord in our hearts as we implored the Lord for help in reaching the unsaved. Even the children, which I had the pleasure to pray with, were excited about praying for those they know who are not believers.
Thurday we closed out the celebration time with a sermon from Robert Wertz.  Bob's sermon built on Wayne's plea to reach our loved one for Christ as he shared his heavy heart over the loved ones he had  recently lost who did not know the Lord.  He took us to scriptures which beautifully show the awesome throne of God and then he said, " Now don't keep this to your self, share it!"
We then joined together for a meal,  as we recounted the weeks messages and happenings and we left with both joy( for what we had shared) and sadness(as we wished it were not over) and we went our own ways to live what we had learned.