Monday, December 7, 2020

December 7 – “It’s snowing??”

We had a really great crowd at church yesterday morning.  More than 40 people were there.  I met a new couple who just bought a house in Jamaica Beach.  They live in Conroe but expect to be spending a lot of time at their beach house and wanted to find a spot where they could plug into the community.  Always great to have someone who is looking to get really involved. 

 

Last night we had our first ever Christmas Singalong outside under the Retreat Center Building.  Forty plus folks were there for that as well, with a lot of new faces.  There were also some familiar faces from the community.  Lauren and Cathy set up Christmas lights everywhere.  Candy canes decorated the posts.  We had hot chocolate and Christmas cookies and books about the Christmas story for the kiddos.  Jim and the Praise Team did their usual fabulous job of leading the songs.  They even provided an after-party of sorts when things were winding down.  I’m pretty sure I heard “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” in there somewhere.  Not your usual caroling fare, but it was certainly entertaining.  We even had people dancing when the music struck their fancy.  I thought people only danced to Christmas music on Hallmark movies …

 

The real surprise of the night was the snow machine brought in by Cathy.  She set it up on the deck and showered sweet-smelling, fluffly snow-like bubbles on frolickers below.  That became the absolute favorite spot for photos.  Standing in the snow on Galveston Island.  Brennan made a nice snow angel.  His snowman was pretty short, though.  From the sounds of the feedback everyone had a great time.


Oh, and the whole point of the night ... we collected a whole table full of toys for the Galveston Urban Ministries toy store for inner city Galveston.  Chris and I will be delivering then this morning.

 

Now back at home things were a little more … interesting.  As we were getting ready to head to bed, I glanced out the front window and saw flashing lights.  I mean like right in front of our house.  Curious, of course, I went out to see what was going on.  Sure enough, an ambulance was pulled up to the house next door.  Two police cars were parked across the street.  We couldn’t really tell what was happening, and the ambulance eventually turned off its lights drove away.  However, a total of four police vehicles made appearances before they all finally disappeared.  Still not sure what happened over there, but I did some praying …

 

Romans 15:4 says, “For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through the endurance taught in the Scriptures and the encouragement they provide we might have hope.”

 

Father, please move in whatever the situation was next door.  Draw those folks to yourself.  Amen.

 

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