Second, Terrie MacMorran will be leading the Move Up Sunday program since Pastor
\nRyan is on sabbatical. The teachers and volunteers who help with the children\u2019s
\nprograms will be recognized. We will recognize the students who will be advancing
\nfrom Early Elementary (grades 1-3) to Late Elementary and special recognition will be
\ngiven to those moving from Late Elementary (grades 4-6) to the world of \u201cBig
\nChurch\u201d. If you attend the 1st service you are invited to stick around for the beginning
\nfew minutes of the 2nd service to witness the program. They are a fantastic bunch of
\nyoung people who deserve our support.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n <\/p>\n
There is a ROOTS Reconnect planned for August 12th. Cassie Linville is the one you will want to
\nsee for more information.<\/p>\n
Sunday was such a good day in the life of OVCF. I was honored to present Keely Wills with a
\nBible, as well as Amelia Biggs. Keely gave her life to Christ at Senior High week at Hilltop and was
\nbaptized on July 7th. Amelia gave her life to Jesus and was baptized at the end of the Junior II
\nweek on July 23rd. \u00a0 Keely is part of our youth group family and Pastor Ryan was sorry to miss
\ngiving Keely her Bible. Amelia went to Hilltop at the encouragement of Linda St. John and you
\nsee the result of that. This is one example of why the elders of OVCF believe in making sure<\/strong>
\nour young people and their friends have scholarships to go to camp.<\/strong> More exciting news to
\ncome!<\/p>\nI had someone text me Sunday saying, \u201cI cannot believe how many beautiful things are
\nhappening right now!\u201d I responded by saying, \u201cGod is in the good and the bad. You relish the
\ngood; learn from the bad; and grow through them both. Above all, you keep your heart for
\nGod.\u201d That brought to mind something I read recently in a book called Fractured Faith by Lina
\nAbujamra. Lina was born in Lebanon and migrated here with her parents as a young child. She
\ncame to know Christ and was on staff of a large megachurch as a Bible teacher in the Ladies
\nMinistry when the Senior Pastor imploded and took down others with him. Lina was one of
\nthem. Her job was gone and her identity (and her faith) took a major hit. This book is her way
\nback to a vibrant faith. I\u2019d like to share a couple quotes from her book to go along with what I
\ntexted:<\/p>\n
\n- \u00a0\u201cThe longer I live, I wonder if my inability to see God in my pain is rooted in the fact that
\nI\u2019m not really looking for God. I\u2019m looking for a god to show up in the way that I want
\nhim to and to give me what I want him to give me.\u201d (p.30)<\/li>\n - \u201cThe reality is that often we\u2019re never as close to our Father as we are in our suffering.
\nWe\u2019re never as alive to God\u2019s purposes as we are when we suffer.\u201d (p.30)<\/li>\n - \u201cPain\u2019s gift is that it increases awareness. Suffering heightens our sense of need and
\ndeepens our heart\u2019s cry for help. While suffering hurts, a growing sense of God\u2019s
\npresence heals.\u201d (p.31)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n <\/p>\n
There is more but I\u2019ll leave you with those and with what I said Sunday in the sermon. \u201cYou can
\ntrust God. He never wavers. He never changes. He never waffles. He is a rock. Run to the rock!\u201d<\/p>\n
With that in mind, have a good week. I love you all.<\/p>\n
Pastor Bill<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
MIDWEEK MESSAGE #166 Hello and welcome to Midweek Message #166! Thanks for taking the time to read this and allowing me to share my heart, as well as some information with you. I hope you are having a good week so far. Remember to pray for our military person for this week: Christopher Erb. Christopher … <\/p>\n
Continue reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"_crdt_document":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[36,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11394","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-midweekmessage","category-ovcf-news","nodate","item-wrap"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ovcf.org\/ovcf_wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11394","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ovcf.org\/ovcf_wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ovcf.org\/ovcf_wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ovcf.org\/ovcf_wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ovcf.org\/ovcf_wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11394"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ovcf.org\/ovcf_wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11394\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11395,"href":"https:\/\/www.ovcf.org\/ovcf_wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11394\/revisions\/11395"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ovcf.org\/ovcf_wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11394"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ovcf.org\/ovcf_wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11394"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ovcf.org\/ovcf_wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11394"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}