MIDWEEK MESSAGE #159
Hello and welcome to Midweek Message #159. I hope you had a wonderful Memorial Day celebration with family and friends and took time to remember the men and women who served, and now serve, our country. No matter what some may say, this is still the greatest country to live in.
During summer break, we will put our prayers for school personnel on pause. We will begin praying for our Law Enforcement Officers. This week please pray for Caleb Hutchison. Caleb works for the Department of Natural Resources. Like all LEOs he carries a big responsibility on his shoulders. Please include his wife, Amanda, and their two children, Addi and Owen in your prayers.
This coming Sunday is Graduate Recognition Sunday! We will be acknowledging the remaining two college graduates-Abigail Herrington (Taylor University) and Kelci Wood (Goucher College). I will have more details of their degrees and future plans after Sunday. Look in next week’s MM for those details.
Just an FYI: I am really, really, (did I say really?) excited about Father’s Day (FD). I will give you more information as we get closer, but let me just say that the number of men who have responded to my request to participate has exceeded my expectations. The number of men who have stepped up to do Communion Thoughts and now to take part in FD has shown me that there are some men who are serious about taking leadership in their home and in the church. I think you will be just as excited about FD as I am. More information to come!!
Another FYI: It is not too late to register your child to attend Hilltop Camp for a week that will change their life. I do not know at this point how many of our young people have signed up to attend camp, but I do know that Pastor Ryan and Hope have two full weeks of Wilderness Camp. One week is totally filled and the other is close. Ryan showed me the improvements which are being made to the wilderness camp area and they are beautiful. Just this past week we had some visitors who had children they were inquiring for about camp. If you would like to know more about Hilltop or about signing up your child, please call Diana at the church office. She can give you a code to use when you sign up. Just so you know: the elders of OVCF have made a commitment to pay scholarships for all campers. But we can’t do that unless you contact Diana to get the scholarship code. And I know this added bonus will convince you for sure! Ryan and I have made it a practice to visit the weeks of camp in which we have young people to let them know they are being thought of. We usually go in the afternoon, embarrass them in front of their peers by being the old geezers who come to visit (at least me), then leave. ☺ Hey, that alone is worth the price of admission!!
Did you also know that we have a ton, and I mean a ton of young people, who are participating in summer ball at the Sports Complex? I’m not even going to try to list them all, there are so many. Jo and I have tried to attend as many games as we can (Tami has also joined us as some of the kids were in her kindergarten class at school) and have spent many-a-night walking from one end of the complex to the other and back again. We come home and our legs and feet are sore, but man, have we had fun!! It sort of takes me back to my days as a youth pastor when I attended game after game. It was easier on my body back then, but I gotta tell you, we have had a blast!
Remember in past MMs how I told you that Pastor Ryan and I were reading to the kindergarten classes in the S-OCS system? Two new kindergarten teachers are being hired to cover new classes at GES and SES. What an exciting future for the schools! I can’t wait to see what that will bring when it comes to reading to the classes.
I’d like to share a story with you. I have been reading No Reason to Hide by Erwin Lutzer. Pastor Lutzer was the pastor at Moody Memorial Church in Chicago for an amazing 36 years. He now writes some very insightful books. One other I read during the pandemic was We Will Not Be SILENCED. Anyway, here is the story:
Millions of mothers can be called heroes. One such is Sonya, who entered into an abusive marriage at 13, and later separated from her husband. She never did learn to read, but she was passionate that her children learn to do so.
She had two son, Curtis and Benjamin. Ben was 8, his brother, Curtis, was 10 when their parents divorced. Sonya worked 2-3 jobs at a time, leaving their small apartment at 5:00 a.m. to go to work, and not coming home until midnight.
When the brothers came home with poor grades, she instituted a strict change. She limited her sons’ TV time and they couldn’t go outside until their schoolwork was done.
Sonya could not have predicted her son Ben would become a famous pediatric surgeon. He performed the first reported separation of twins who were joined at the back of the head. He was an esteemed professor of neurosurgery, oncology, plastic surgery, and pediatrics at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.
Ben Carson always paid tribute to his mother and credits her fervent dedication to him and his brother for their success. {Pages 230-231- Edited for space}
More could be said about parenting and schools (but I’ll refrain), but I leave you with this: we may never know the influence we have now, or down the road. But let’s make sure it is a good one.
Have a good rest of the week and remember you are loved.
Pastor Bill
