Eternal God, in whom we live and move and have our being, and who by your mighty power raised Jesus Christ from the dead, give us the light and life of your presence. Help us to put our trust in your wisdom and to open ourselves to the ministry of your love. Open our hearts, that we may truly hear your words or encouragement as they come to us from the Scriptures, and that by their consolation we may be lifted out of our sorrow to know that in Christ there is life eternal. Amen.
The third annual Feasting With Friends event was a great success. On Saturday, April 12, 2014, the church congregation's volunteers, assisted with donations from local stores--for which we are very grateful--served nearly 90 hungry people from 1 to 3 PM. We had a very ecumenical experience, with members from several area churches present to join in the fellowship. People from a variety of communities joined in, along with individuals struggling with food insecurity issues. Everyone was well served, with food, fellowship, community, and respect. Pastor Jeff Snyder gave a brief presentation during the meal about the future of the church as a community church reaching out into our communities where God is calling us to work.
March has been a month of continuing with teaching and preparing to teach in the second semester for Pastoral Care for Women.
I am also making progress on one of my 2014 goals, to build stronger ties with churches and the women of the Baptist Federation. God has graciously provided several opportunities this month. I have visited a church and a mission that I'd never been in before. The director of Pastoral Care for Women and I were able to share with one of the women pastors about the resources we can offer her church as they deal with domestic violence in one of their missions. Another woman pastor called to "cry on my shoulder" for an hour; what a privilege to listen and pray with her. The president of the Baptist Women invited me to be the closing speaker at their Retreat on April 25-26 to share on the topic of Christian service. The leaders and I met to make preliminary plans this month and I covet your prayers as I seek to bring them God's message!
During March, I also reconnected with colleague Chris Marziale who represented International Ministries at the playground dedication in La Guacima, as well as helping out a work group from Woodbury Baptist Church of St. Paul, Minnesota.
Thank you so much for your prayers and gifts, which make these "connections" possible. These relational "connections" are the stuff of ministry and we are partners in this!
~Sue HegartyIf you would like to learn more about the work of American Baptist missionaries around the world, see: https://www.internationalministries.org/
You become conscious that you were sent here for just a short time, for twenty, forty, or eighty years, to discover and believe that you are a beloved child of God. The length of time doesn’t matter. You are sent into this world to believe in yourself as God’s chosen one and then to help your brothers and sisters know that they also are beloved sons and daughters of God who belong together. You’re sent into this world to be a people of reconciliation. You are sent to heal, to break down the walls between you and your neighbors, locally, nationally, and globally. Before all the distinctions, the separations, and the walls built on foundations of fear, there was unity in the mind and heart of God. Out of that unity, you are sent into this world for a little while to claim that you and every other human being belongs to that same God of Love who lives from eternity to eternity.Will you accept that you are so loved by God? If you really, truly believe that you are beloved by God, will you also let others know they are equally loved and sought by God? This could be the ongoing project of your life.
There was but one church or “meeting house” in Bethel, which all attended, sinking all differences of creed in the Presbyterian faith. The old meetinghouse had neither steeple nor bell and was a plain edifice, comfortable enough in summer, but my teeth chatter even now when I think of the dreary, cold, freezing hours we passed in that place in winter. A stove in a meetinghouse in those days would have been a sacrilegious innovation. The sermons were from an hour and one-half to two hours long, and through these the congregation would sit and shiver till they really merited the title the profane gave them of “blue skins.” Some of the women carried a “foot-stove” consisting of a small square tin box in a wooden frame, the sides perforated, and in the interior there was a small square iron dish, which contained a few live coals covered with ashes. These stoves were usually replenished just before meeting time at some neighbor’s near the meetinghouse.
After many years of shivering and suffering, one of the brethren had the temerity to propose that the church should be warmed with a stove. His impious proposition was voted down by an overwhelming majority. Another year came around, and in November the stove question was again brought up. The excitement was immense. The subject was discussed in the village stores and in the juvenile debate club; it was prayed over in conference, and finally in general “society meeting,” in December, the stove was carried by a majority of one and was introduced into the meetinghouse. On the first Sunday thereafter, two ancient maiden ladies were so oppressed by the dry and heated atmosphere occasioned by the wicked invention, that they fainted away and were carried out into the cool air where they speedily returned to consciousness, especially when they were informed that owing to the lack of two lengths of pipe, no fire had yet been made in the stove. The next Sunday was a bitter cold day, and the stove, filled with well-seasoned hickory, was a great gratification to the many, and displeased only a few.
