Sweet Reunions and New Friends

It’s been another exciting week for us as the Lord allowed us to reunite with some old friends and form new friendships with brothers and sisters in Christ. On Sunday morning, we dropped in on a small church in Georgia and had a sweet time of fellowship with the church family there. After the service, we grabbed a bite to eat and drove an hour down the road to Calvary Baptist Church where we met up with some friends we haven’t seen in many years. Even though the meeting was technically a drop-in, the pastor allowed us to set up our display and present our burden to the church. The ladies of the church also gifted me with a lovely bag of goodies. All in all, it was a blessed day, and we had such a great time with both new friends and old.

We spent the night at a hotel on the Georgia/Alabama line as we continued our journey to a mission conference in Florida. The strange thing about this particular hotel is that even though it was inside the Central time zone, it adhered to Eastern time. This meant our phones and computers automatically adjusted to Central, but all the clocks in the hotel were set to Eastern. It was a bit weird and took our brains a few tries to figure out what time it actually was and how that time related to the meeting to which we were headed. Strange stuff!

The mission conference at Faith Bible Baptist was a huge blessing, and once again, we were reunited with friends—some we saw not too long ago and another we haven’t seen since the beginning of our deputation. We also made many new friends throughout the congregation and, of course, with the pastor. There was such a sweet spirit, and though the church isn’t particularly large, they went above and beyond to make our stay with them comfortable and enjoyable. We were gifted baskets full of so many goodies my mouth watered as soon as I saw them. They put us up in a lovely prophet’s chamber and allowed Jason to preach and present our burden. In addition to the missionaries’ sermons, there was a short series on the benefits of giving which we found quite interesting. And the food!!!! Each night, a family in the church prepared a meal for the missionaries. We had delectable dishes like beef stew, BBQ ribs and chicken, lasagna, salads, veggies, and desserts. The food rivaled anything you would find at a nice restaurant, and it was evident it was prepared with love.

The conference lasted through Wednesday, so Thursday morning, we packed our bags and headed back home. The weather was nasty all the way home—particularly through Atlanta—but God kept us safe. On Friday, we worked on the house a bit more and made some good progress there. Today (Saturday), we’re catching up on some ministry paperwork and laundry because we’re soon headed out for another meeting. We’ll be leaving around 7:00 in the morning and heading to Tennessee, so we’d appreciate your prayers.

It’s been such a joy to see God working in ways we’ve never imagined, and as always, we’re excited to see what He’ll do next.