10 May 2007

A Month of Blessings

Thank you Pre-teens for our Nursury Items!
We had several children and two babies this past Sunday who got to enjoy the new toys, gifts, chairs and crib items that our Riverchase Children’s Ministry sent to our church (by way of Dewayne Spivey, Ron Jackson and Carol Echols). Thank you to Tony and to all who contributed to our nursury / children’s room. Your gifts have really helped to make it a more inviting place for our little ones. We appreciate all that God has provided for our children at church so that they feel His love and so that all of our visiting families feel welcome too.

Meditating on Our Church History Together
Many of you know that April 1st was our 1 year anniversary. Throughout the month of April we have had a special presentation each Sunday of the firsts God has blessed us with over this past year. April 8th we presented our 6 new baptisms from this first year, April 15th, were our two new married couples, April 22nd, we gave thanks to God for the two baby births, and April 29th, we had a special blessing over all of our new members from this first year. Each week we committed as a church to care for the people in these categories of transition. God has blessed us in many ways and we are glad that we could take this whole month of rememberance to thank Him and encourage our church to reflect on His goodness to us.

Youth Movie Night
We had a great turn out for youth movie night at the building. We watched the movie Signs and all the teens wore foil on their heads during the movie (if you haven’t seen the movie, this is so the aliens would not read their minds). We also had glasses of water set up all around the room and a baby monitor in the front by the screen making strange noises every so often. After the movie we had small group discussions about the importance of faith in God and faith stations set up around the room to demonstrate how we put our faith and trust in God. We had about 20 youth total with even some of our English students participating! Praise God for a great night!

Women’s Spiritual Disciplines Class
The women of the church are having a spiritual disciplines class once a month after service and lunch together. April 29th was Mary Virginia’s turn to teach. There were over 20 Brazilian women who participated and all were given a journal with activites to do during the next month. These ladies left greatly encouraged to spend quiet time with God meditating and reflecting on His Word, His Creation and their personal relationships with Him. All the women are looking forward to the next meeting at the end of May when Jennifer leads the class on Prayer.

Evangelism Day
This day came about as a suggestion by one of our Brazilian Christians, Veronica. She wanted to get a group together from our church to go door knocking and advertise our Mother’s Day service. (Here Mother’s Day is the biggest church day of the year like Christmas is in the States.) So, that’s exactly what we did. Our group of 12 (10 Brazilians and 2 missionaries) split up and went door to door in the two neighborhoods near our church asking people if they wanted us to pray with them. Many people were receptive to the idea of prayer. The second thing we did was bless the person or family with a scripture about God’s love for them explaining that this is why we came by today. We then gave the invitation to our Mother’s Day breakfast and special service this coming Sunday. Please, pray that God will open the hearts of those who were invited and thank God for the encouragement that He gave to our Brazilian members through this experience of sharing their faith. There is much happening in our little church right now and we thank you for remembering us in your prayers. We pray for all the Mother’s at Riverchase, Flat River, Cullman and Cox Boulevard and ask that you continue to take care of Cindy Sirmon and Glenda Mabery for us!

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