Happy Thanksgiving!
Yep, I know that the annual holiday known as “Thanksgiving” is half the calendar away. But that doesn’t change the fact that today, I’m giving thanks. For what specifically? For you, my church family. In fact, do you know what came to mind as I thought of you? The Apostle Paul’s loving words to the church in Philippi: “I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now,” Philippians 1:3-5.
Seriously, since the first day I started back in August, I have been impressed by your partnership in the Gospel and specifically in seeing it go forth in our community. My most recent encouragement came when you showed up in droves for Evergreen Community Cares. I can’t tell you how much fun I had serving alongside so many of you. In case you haven’t yet heard, God very much blessed the event. People were prayed for, the Gospel was shared, Bibles were taken, hugs and smiles were common place, and personal connections were made (and that’s not to mention all the services that were provided!).
I’m especially thankful right now for Leann Dodds. She did a fantastic job of spearheading this event. There is absolutely no way that this could have been possible without her (barring a walking on water type of miracle). In fact, like a good leader, Leann has written a thank you to all of you who prayed, gave, or volunteered. For more details about the outcome of the event please read her “thank you” here.
I’m excited to follow up with the people we served. If you’d like to be part of our follow-up team, please come to our one hour meeting this Monday, May 23 at 6pm at the church. As part of our follow up, we have an Ice Cream Party planned for next Saturday, May 28 from 1pm to 3pm at David Douglas Park. If you’d like to come connect with families from our community who may come, please do. Another follow up event will be a Parents’ Night Out on Wednesday, June 15 where we will be hosting children from the community and watching them here at EBC. If you’d like to help with either of these, please email me and I’ll let you know what you can do.
As excited as I am about how God has already used EBC, I’m even more excited to see what God does in the future. I think the same thing was true of Paul when he followed up his statement (that I quoted earlier), by saying “For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus” (Philippians 1:6). God has begun a good work in us and He will continue it until we meet Jesus face to face! So much to be thankful for!