MIDWEEK MESSAGE #182
HELLO and welcome to Midweek Message #182. When you get this Thanksgiving will be over and we will be sleighing towards Christmas. I hope you had a grateful Thanksgiving filled with appreciation for family and friends, but most of all for God’s goodness to all of us.
I’d like to remind you to pray for the following folks this week:
- Our Educator of the Week, Christine Chambers, is the first of our homeschool moms whom you will be asked to pray for over the next couple of weeks. Christine, and her husband Jimmy, have four children (Eliza, Isabella, Alexander, and Arionna). Christine was a public school teacher until she started having her own children. As you can imagine her life is filled with studies and being “mom’s taxi service.” ☺ She and Jimmy are the owners of Chambers Restaurant.
- Our College Student of the Week is Mollie Wainscott. Mollie is a freshman at Milligan University. Mollie is an accomplished violinist and is playing in the orchestra at Milligan.
- Our Mission of the Week is Serge, specifically Will & Theresa Reed. Will & Theresa and their three girls- Audrey (5), Ellie (7) and Tallie (2) are serving in Nairobi, Kenya.
YOUTH CORNER
Yep, opened up a can of worms (see last MM), but I wouldn’t have it any other way. ☺ Here are some young people I want to spotlight this week:
- Cammie King was voted MVP by her JV volleyball teammates and recognized at the Fall Sports Banquet for the honor. Proud mama Cara was the informant. ☺
- A number of our young men are playing basketball for OV basketball teams.
- Kaden White is playing on the freshman boys’ basketball team.
- Kaden’s brother, Kyson, is playing on the 7th grade team. Rumor has it both boys got their basketball genes from their mom, Karen (Redenbaugh) White, who set several records at OVHS and went on to play at IU.
- I saw Eli Wood’s picture on the wall at OVMS (not a Wanted poster). I was impressed with his 4.0 GPA.
Next week I will feature some more of our outstanding young people who attend OVCF. If you know of special achievements please let me know. You can text me or drop me an email.
Before I go any further I need say a huge, and I mean a HUGE THANK YOU for everyone who helped with the Thanksgiving meal. We served about 80 meals (delivery, curbside, inside and take-out). While that was lower than last year, we still made 80+ people happy by giving them a Thanksgiving meal. I have received a few thank you’s from people and they were extremely grateful for their meal. We also took a ton of food (mostly desserts which will put those folks on a sugar high for days) to the EMS workers. It would not have been possible if not for your help in preparing the food, packaging meals, and delivering them. We will need to make some adjustments for next year, but I know God was blessed by our service.
BACKPACK BUDDIES
Every weekend during the school year over 200+ students receive food from the S-OCS school system to take home. As you can imagine this is a daunting task and would be totally impossible if not for the generosity of people and businesses in our community who care about the students. OVCF is one of those who cares. During the year we will sometimes ask for donations of food to be taken to the school. We will give a financial donation to help with buying food. We have also asked you to help us make food possible for these students. This year OVCF bought over $1000 worth of items for the students to take home for Christmas break, but we are also asking for your help in adding to what the church itself purchased. Diana has made a handy list that you can take with you to do your shopping, but just in case you are unable to be here to get the list (or they are all gone), I thought I would include it below. Every little bit helps. The best gift of all? You are helping one of our S-OCS students have something to eat over Christmas break. Here’s the list:
- Ramen noodles (chicken or beef)
- Little Debbie- Cosmic brownies
- Little Debbie- Star Crunch
- Little Debbie- Nutty Buddies
- Fruit snacks
- Snack-size chips, pretzels, goldfish crackers
If you would like to help, please bring donations to the church building by or on December 3rd. We plan to deliver them that week. Thank you again for being such generous people. ☺
I have been preaching a series entitled More Than a Holiday during the month of November. I decided to carry that theme over into December. I thought you might like to see what is ahead for the month:
- December 3- Long, Long Ago
- December 10- What a Heritage!
- December 17- The Role of a Lifetime
- December 24- Don’t Miss It!
- December 31- What Does it all Mean?
One extra: Since Christmas Eve is on a Sunday, we will be having one 10 AM service + a Christmas Eve service at 5:00 PM. I’ll fill you in more when I have a more concrete idea. (Not my brain…the plan). ☺
Meanwhile, have a great week. It was a joy seeing many of you and spending part of Thanksgiving Day with you. I look forward to spending the month of December with you.
Due to the death of Jo’s sister on Sunday, we will be out of town from yesterday (Tuesday) until Friday. The service is Thursday. Prayers would be appreciated for safety and all to go smoothly.
Pastor Bill
